H3I 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


BY 


VERNON   C.    HARRINGTON 

ASSISTANT   PROFESSOR  OF    ENGLISH   IN   MIDDLEBURY 
COLLEGE 


BOSTON:    RICHARD   G.   BADGER 

TORONTO:  THE  COPP  CLARK  CO.,  LIMITED 
MCMXV 


Copyright,  1915,  by  Richard  G.  Badger 
All  Rights  Reserved 


THE  GORHAM   PRESS,   BOSTON,   U.S.A. 


BeMcatton 

TO 

THE    STUDENTS 

WHO  HAVE  STUDIED   BROWNING  WITH  ME 
IN  OBERLIN  AND  MIDDLEBURY 


You  must  not  mind  if  I  dedicate  these  Studies  to  you, 
for  most  of  them  were  prepared  for  you  and  your  interest 
(may  I  venture  to  say  enthusiasm  ?)  in  them  is  responsible 
for  their  publication.  Peradventure,  if  your  eyes  light  on 
this  book,  its  words  may  bring  to  your  minds  the  course 
in  Nineteenth  Century  Poetry,  the  gray  classroom,  and 
those  long  and  forbidding  lists  of  questions  for  written 
tests,  to  be  answered  without  regard  to  floods  of  sunshine 
or  of  rain  outside  the  windows.  I  hope  this  book  may 
also  bring  keenly  to  your  thoughts  the  good  friends  you 
found  among  the  English  Poets  of  the  nineteenth  century 
and,  above  all,  the  imperial  soul  of  Robert  Browning. 
You  may  be  sure  that  working  over  these  lectures,  to  re- 
vise them  somewhat  and  to  get  them  written  out  so  that 
some  one  besides  myself  can  understand  the  abbreviations, 
has  brought  you  all  many  times  before  my  mind's  eye  and 
has  made  more  plain  to  me  the  eager  and  generous  spirit 
which  so  many  of  you  showed  and  has  caused  me  to  realize 
anew  how  your  spirit  helped  me  to  put  into  orderly  pres- 
entation something  of  what  has  come  out  of  the  years  of 
my  reading  of  Browning.  And  so  I  dedicate  to  you  now 
these  lectures,  because,  in  a  very  real  sense,  they  already 
belong  to  you. 

iii 

331035 


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PREFACE 

These  Browning  Studies  were  given  in  Oberlin  College, 
in  the  Department  of  English  in  the  course  on  Nineteenth 
Century  Poetry,  in  the  second  semester  of  the  year  1908- 
09,  and  were  repeated  in  the  corresponding  semester  of 
the  year  1909-10.  They  constituted  a  course  in  the  Sum- 
mer Session  of  Middlebury  College  in  191 3,  and  were 
given  here  again  as  a  part  of  the  study  of  Nineteenth 
Century  Poetry  in  the  second  semester  of  the  year  191 3- 
14.  It  should  be  explained  also  that  the  greater  part  of 
the  study  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book  was  written  before 
those  Oberlin  days,  and  that  since  those  days  Bishop  Blou- 
grams  Apology^  A  Death  in  the  Desert^  and  Reverie  have 
been  added  to  the  list  of  poems  taken  up ;  also  that,  be- 
sides being  used  in  connection  with  the  college  classes 
mentioned  above,  several  of  the  lectures  have  been  given 
in  various  places. 

The  interest  taken  by  the  students  in  these  studies 
has  suggested  their  publication.  They  are  now  printed 
as  given  in  the  classroom,  with  some  revision.  Abbrevia- 
tions are  written  out  more  than  in  the  author's  notes,  but 
no  attempt  has  been  made  to  reproduce  the  extempora- 
neous elaboration  and  explanation  given  in  the  classroom. 
Lectures  which  occupied  several  classroom  hours  are  here 
sometimes  combined  into  a  single  chapter. 

These  studies  do  not  pretend  to  be  exhaustive.  They 
are  simply  an  introduction  to  some  of  Browning's  best 
work.  They  are  intended  now,  as  they  were  in  the  class- 
room, for  those  who  have  not  read  Browning  at  all  before, 
or  very  little.    The  idea  which  people  get,  that  they  cannot 


Vi  •  PREFACE 

understand  Browning,  is  one  of  those  **  literary  supersti- 
tions "  which  are  passed  from  one  to  another.  I  remem- 
ber well  my  pleasure  when  I  first  seriously  tried  to  read 
Browning  and  found  that  I  could  do  it.  A  part  of  the 
pleasure  of  teaching  Browning,  in  the  courses  already 
referred  to,  was  enjoying  the  surprise  of  students,  when 
they  found  they  could  read  Browning  and  get  something 
out  of  him.  It  is  true,  however,  that  in  reading  Browning 
a  great  deal  depends  on  what  sort  of  a  start  we  get,  i.e. 
what  poems  we  read  first.  I  do  not  wonder  at  the  expe- 
rience of  the  Cincinnati  gentleman  (referred  to  in  Chapter 
II)  who  began  with  Red  Cotton  Night-Cap  Country.  These 
studies  for  the  classroom  were  planned  with  purpose  that 
students  might  begin  Browning  right,  as  far  as  I  could 
understand  from  my  own  experience  what  is  the  right  way 
to  begin,  and,  for  the  same  reason,  they  are  now  given  in 
printed  form  in  the  same  order. 

I  confess  that  I  owe  Robert  Browning  a  debt  which  I 
can  never  pay,  for  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that 
Browning  opened  a  new  world  to  me.  His  optimism  and 
his  red-blooded  joy  in  the  intensity  of  struggle  in  the  pres- 
ent hour  and  his  stern  facing  of  life  have  done  me  an 
immense  good.  The  optimism  of  most  people  makes  me 
more  pessimistic  and  makes  the  whole  situation  seem  hope- 
less, because  most  people's  optimism  is  of  a  childish  sort, 
due  to  their  good  digestion  and  agreeable  experiences  and 
to  their  ignorance  of  the  evil  in  the  world  and  their  blind- 
ness to  the  beauty  and  the  cruelty  of  human  life.  But 
Robert  Browning's  optimism  is  not  that  of  a  child,  but  of 
a  f  ullgrown  man  who  realizes  keenly  the  worst  there  is  in 
the  world,  and  yet,  in  the  face  of  it  all,  believes  in  the 
existence  of  and  the  triumph  of  good.  I  hold  that  no 
man  who  has  found  a  good  thing  should  keep  it  for  him- 
self alone.     Therefore,  if  Browning  has  been  good  for  me 


PREFACE  vii 

and  if  I  can  encourage  some  one  else  to  get  acquainted 
with  him,  it  is  my  duty  and  privilege  to  do  so. 

A  practical  suggestion  may  not  be  amiss  as  to  a  way  of 
using  the  present  book.  It  should  be  used  never  apart 
from  but  only  alongside  a  good  edition  of  Browning.  It 
will  be  well  to  read  the  introductory  lectures  first;  then 
to  take  up  the  poems  designated  in  the  studies  that  follow, 
each  poem  in  turn,  reading  the  matter  given  in  the  lecture, 
then  reading  the  poem,  then  referring  again  to  the  lecture 
and  again  to  the  poem  as  long  as  the  lecture  can  be  found 
of  any  assistance.  I  shall  be  glad  if  the  notes  and  com- 
ments I  have  written  down  can  be  of  service  in  some  such 
way  as  this,  but  always  the  poem  is  the  thing. 

V.  C.  H. 

MiDDLEBURY,   VERMONT, 

December  12,  19 14. 


\ 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Robert  Browning  i 
II.    Introduction  (Continued)  :    Browning  as  a  Lit- 
erary Artist 51 

III.  Introduction  (Concluded)  :    Our  Plan  of  Study 

in  this  Course 76 

IV.  Some  of  the  Short  Poems  Published  before  Mrs. 

Browning's  Death 78 

V.    Some  of  the  Short  Poems  Published  after  Mrs. 

Browning's  Death 104 

VI.    Three  of  the  Longer  Poems  now  Standing  among 

the  Dramatic  Romances 114 

VII.    Four  of  the  Major  Poems  in  Men  and  Women    .  136 
VIII.    Saul  and  In  a  Balcony     .        .        .        .        .        .168 

IX.    A  Group  of  the  Dramatis  Person^e        .        .        .182 

X.    Paracelsus 199 

XI.    PippA  Passes 230 

XII.    A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon 252 

XIII.  LuRiA 270 

XIV.  A  Soul's  Tragedy       . 288 

XV.    The  Ring  and  the  Book 301 

XVI.    The  Ring  and  the  Book  (Concluded)    .        .        .330 

XVII.    Balaustion's  Adventure 351 

APPENDIX  A 375 

APPENDIX   B 382 

APPENDIX  C 388 

INDEX 391 


BROWNING   STUDIES 


AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE   STUDY  OF 
ROBERT  BROWNING 

In  all  the  world  there  is  no  place  with  greater  store 
of  associations  than  Westminster  Abbey.  It  is  crowded 
with  graves.  It  seems  almost  like  a  vast  tomb,  instead  of 
a  church.  Here  in  dust  lie  so  many  great  and  renowned. 
Where  else  can  you  find  so  many  and  famous  names  as 
along  the  walls  and  on  the  floor  of  Westminster  Abbey  ? 

And  there  is  no  place  where  the  vanity  of  human  life 
comes  in  upon  your  spirit  so.  In  the  gloom  of  that  church, 
one  feels  very  keenly  the  truth  of  St.  James'  words :  "  For 
what  is  your  life  ?  It  is  even  a  vapour,  that  appeareth  for 
a  little  time,  and  then  vanisheth  away."  Each  time  I 
visited  Westminster  Abbey,  it  had  the  same  effect.  It  is 
a  curious  feeling  to  stand  on  the  stones  which  cover  the 
graves  of  those  whose  names  and  greatness  have  been 
famiHar  to  us  from  childhood  up.  Mouths  stopped  with 
dust,  strong  hands  disintegrated,  brave  hearts  the  helpless 
prey  of  corruption,  and  mighty  brain  of  one  after  another 
turned  into  a  handful  of  earth !  "After  life's  fitful  fever," 
they  "sleep  well."  I  know  one  day  I  left  the  church  and 
went  out  into  the  cloisters,  and  walked  while  the  winter 
sun  went  down,  —  and  the  nothingness  of  human  Ufe,  the 
pitifulness  and  absurdity  of  all  our  struggle,  filled  the  hori- 
zon of  my  thoughts.    Such  desolate  words  as.the  Psalmists 


2  .BROWNING  STUDIES 

wrote  would  keep  coming  into  mind  with  fresh  meaning: 
*' We  spend  our  years  as  k  tale  that  is  told."  "As  for  man, 
his  days  are  as  grass ;  as  a  flower  of  the  field,  so  he  flour- 
isheth.  For  the  wind  passeth  over  it,  and  it  is  gone,  and 
the  place  thereof  shall  know  it  no  more." 

And  in  Westminster  Abbey,  I  always  paused  a  long  time 
by  two  graves  among  the  others  so  crowded  in  the  Poets' 
Corner.  There  they  lie,  side  by  side,  each  under  a  plain 
slab  in  the  floor,^  Alfred  Tennyson  and  Robert  Browning. 
As  they  lived,  the  two  lights  which  outshone  all  their  con- 
temporaries, so  they  lie  there  now,  —  side  by  side. 

There  is  at  once  a  temptation  to  compare  these  two  men, 
and  partisan  admirers  are  constantly  praising  one  and  dis- 
paraging the  other.  This  is  quite  unnecessary.  They  are 
very  different.  There  is  room  for  both.  Each  supple- 
ments the  other.  Each  has  his  mission  and  makes  his 
contribution.  We  defraud  ourselves,  if  we  choose  either 
Tennyson  or  Browning  and  neglect  the  other.  How  these 
two  men  felt  toward  each  other  may  be  judged  from  these 
two  dedications : 

(i)  Browning's  volume  of  Selections,  1872,  selected  from 
his  works  and  arranged  by  himself,  with  Preface,  and 

"Dedicated  to 

Alfred  Tennyson 

in  poetry  —  illustrious  and  consummate 

in  friendship  —  noble  and  sincere." 

(2)  Tennyson's  volume  Tiresias  and  Other  Poems,  1885, 

"To  my  good  friend 

Robert  Browning 

whose  genius  and  geniality 

will  best  appreciate  what  may  be  best 

and  make  most  allowance  for  what  may  be  worst." 

,  \-'  •  ;.' }  A  bust  of  Tennyson  stands  not  far  off. 


INTRODUCTION  3 

Nothing  could  show  mutual  appreciation  and  admiration 
better  than  these  dedications.  Then,  let  not  the  admirers 
of  either  Tennyson  or  Browning  do  an  injustice  to  the 
other. 

We  have  given  some  weeks  to  the  study  of  Tennyson. 
We  come  now  to  the  study  of  Robert  Browning.  After 
many  years  of  familiarity  with  Browning's  poems,  it  is 
with  a  certain  sense  of  reverence  that  I  turn  to  them  now. 
**Iwas  not  ever  thus."  In  college,  I  sneered  and  jeered 
at  Robert  Browning.  I  repeated  all  the  threadbare  jokes 
about  the  obscurity  of  his  style  and  nobody's  knowing 
what  he  meant.  I  argued  that  enthusiasm  for  Browning 
was  a  fad  and  was  pretended  by  men  and  women  who 
couldn't  imderstand  Browning.  In  all  these  remarks,  in 
which  my  college  mates  usually  acquiesced,  I  thought  I  was 
smart.  But  the  fact  is  that  it  was  all  because  /  didnH 
know  any  better.  That  is  my  only  excuse.  The  day  came 
when  I  read  a  statement  of  Browning's  own,^  that  he  had 
never  been  wilfully  obscure,  that,  if  people  couldn't  imder- 
stand his  poems,  he  was  sorry,  for  he  had  tried  to  say  what 
he  meant.  It  occurred  to  me  that  the  difficulty  in  under- 
standing Browning  might  be  one  of  those  ^'Uterary  super- 
stitions" ^  which  get  afloat  in  the  world,  and  I  waded  into 
the  study  of  Browning  for  myself.  ;  I  found  a  mine  of  wealth 
and  beauty.     I  found  a  man  who  faces  life  unflinchingly, 

1  This  statement  of  Browning's  I  am  not  now  able  to  locate.  I  give  it  in 
effect,  and  I  remember  it  pretty  well  and  especially  the  impression  it  made 
on  me.  The  nearest  I  find  is  a  statement  in  a  letter  written  in  1868  to  W.  G. 
Kingsland,  quoted  by  Griffin  and  Minchin,  Life  of  Robert  Browning,  p.  302, 
where  Browning  says:  "But  I  never  designedly  tried  to  puzzle  people, 
as  some  of  my  critics  have  supposed." 

2  In  those  days,  I  did  not  know  this  fortunate  phrase  by  which  to  call 
such  things.  The  phrase  is  one  of  the  Rev.  A.  J.  Carlyle's,  Fellow  of  Uni- 
versity College,  Oxford,  and  Vicar  of  St.  Martin's  and  All  Saints',  in  his 
lectures  on  Some  Common  Characteristics  of  Mediaeval  Literatures. 


4  BROWNING  STUDIES 

whose  comprehensive  sympathy  has  wrestled  with  more  of 
life's  problems  than  anyone  in  English  Literature  except, 
Shakespeare.  After  some  years  of  putting  him  to  the 
test,  often  in  the  night  and  the  storm,  I  can  only  say  in 
^bluntest  simplest  manner,  Robert  Browning  has  helped  me 
^  live.  I  am  not  the  only  one  —  I  have  seen  it  in  many 
others.  Better  acquaintance  with  Browning  has  won  to 
his  side  many  who  opposed  or  laughed  at  him.  A  friend 
of  mine  told  me  that  in  his  class  in  Princeton  some  of  the 
men  who  seemed  most  unlikely  to  do  so  became  enthusiastic 
for  Browning  in  taking  a  course  in  which  his  works  were 
studied.  It  seldom  fails  that  the  fondness  for  Browning 
grows  with  the  years  of  acquaintance.  He  wears  well. 
I  am  not  a  blind  partisan  of  Browning.  I  see  his  defects. 
*>  But  I  know  also  the  soul-satisfying  quality  of  his  thoughts. 
Robert  Browning  will  bring  something  into  the  life  of  any- 
one who  sincerely  studies  his  poems.  When  things  get 
thick,  you  will  find  Robert  Browning  standing  by  you. 
He  has  been  through  it,  and  has  not  flinched.  The  fact 
that  there  could  be  such  a  man  as  he  was  makes  me  beHeve 
more  in  humanity.  And  the  words  which  he  has  penned 
have  been  to  many  almost  like  food  and  drink  in  the  desert. 
This  confession  I  make  for  your  sakes.  Let  me  ask  you, 
then,  to  put  away  your  prejudices  and  to  reserve  your 
judgment  until  we  are  done  with  these  weeks  of  Browning 
study,  lest  you  be  found  pronouncing  judgment  on  your- 
selves, as  I  did  in  my  college  days. 

I.  About  the  Books 

I.  Of  Browning's  Works,  as  far  as  one- volume  editions 
are  concerned,  the  Globe  Edition^  edited  by  Augustine 
Birrell,  New  York,  The  Macmillan  Co.,  is  the  best.  No 
one-volume  edition  of  Browning  can  be  altogether  satis- 


ABOUT  THE  BOOKS  5 

factory,  there  is  so  much  matter  to  put  in.  The  Globe 
Edition  was  formerly  (1896- 1907)  published  in  two  volumes, 
but  by  the  use  of  thinner  paper,  from  1907  on,  it  has  been 
put  into  one  volume,  of  something  over  1300  pages.  This 
was  the  edition  used  by  the  students  to  whom  these  lectures 
were  deHvered,  and  therefore  the  references  in  these  lectures 
are  to  the  pages  and  lines  of  this  edition. 

2.  A  good  edition  is  the  Camherwell  Browning,  with 
introductions  and  notes  by  Miss  Charlotte  Porter  and 
Miss  Helen  A.  Clarke,  12  vols..  New  York,  T.  Y.  Crowell  & 
Co.,  1898.^  The  volumes  are  sold  separately  as  well  as 
in  sets,  and,  on  this  account,  the  numbers  are  in  small 
Arabic  numerals  at  the  bottom  of  the  back.  The  notes 
are  a  great  assistance,  but  unfortunately  are  not  always 
accurate,  and  sometimes  provoke  dissent.^  This  edition 
may  be  had  also  with  Miss  Porter  and  Miss  Clarke's  Brown- 
ing Study  Programmes,  two  vols,  uniform  with  the  others, 
making  14  vols,  in  all. 

3.  The  best  biography  of  Browning  is  The  Life  of  Robert 
Browning,  with  Notices  of  his  Writings,  his  Family,  and 
his  Friends,  by  W.  Hall  Griffin,  completed  and  edited  by 
Harry  Christopher  Minchin,  New  York,  The  MacmiUan 
Co.,  1 9 10.     This  is  done  with  great  care  and  thoroughness. 

4.  Any  mention  of  important  books  for  Browning  study 
should  include  Edmund  Gosse's  Robert  Browning:  Per- 
sonalia, Boston,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1890.  These 
Personalia  are  from  notes  supplied  by  Robert  Browning 
himself. 

5.  Mrs.   Sutherland   Orr's   Life  and  Letters  of  Robert 

^This  is  the  same  as  the  Arno  Edition  which  was  published  by  Geo.  D. 
Sprovil,  New  York,  1899,  (no  longer  issued). 

2  For  a  case  in  which  we  are  obliged  to  dissent,  see  our  note  on  the  word- 
"lathen,"  Appendix  C  of  the  present  volume. 


6  BROWNING  STUDIES 

Browning,  published  in  two  vols.,  1891,  (and  in  a  one- vol. 
edition  the  same  year),  has  been  esteemed  an  indispensable 
source  of  information,  and  so  it  is.  The  author  of  it, 
Mrs.  Alexandra  Leighton  Orr,  became  an  intimate  friend 
of  the  Brownings,  and  had  in  hand  much  unusual  material 
for  a  biography.  But,  because  of  haste  and  inaccuracy, 
the  biography  proved  unsatisfactory  to  the  poet's  son  and 
other  relatives.^  There  has  been  issued,  however,  a  new 
and  enlarged  edition,  revised  by  Frederic  G.  Kenyon,  one 
vol.,  Boston,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1908. 

6.  Mrs.  Orr's  Handbook  to  the  Works  of  Robert  Browning, 
pubHshed  in  1885,  is  now  in  its  eleventh  edition  and  is 
very  good.  This  Handbook  was  approved  by  Robert 
Browning  himself,  and  his  son's  attitude  toward  it,  in 
the  same  conversation  with  Prof.  Phelps  referred  to  in  our 
footnote,  confirms  that  approval.  It  is  published  by  Geo. 
Bell  &  Sons  of  London ;  The  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York. 

7.  A  very  useful  and  reliable  book  is  George  Willis 
Cooke's  Guide-Book  to  the  Poetic  and  Dramatic  Works  of 
Robert  Browning,  Boston,  HoUghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1891. 
It  will  commend  itself  to  anyone  who  refers  to  its  pages 
to  any  extent. 

8.  One  of  the  most  valuable  books  for  general  reference 
is  The  Browning  Cyclopcedia  by  Edward  Berdoe,  ist  edi- 
tion 1 89 1,  7th  edition  191 2,  London,  George  Allen  &  Co. 
Ltd. ;  New  York,  The  MacmiUan  Co.  This  book  is  some- 
times disappointing.  Dr.  Berdoe  cannot  avoid  reading 
into  Browning  too  much  of  his  own  Roman  Catholic  faith 
and  his  zeal  against  vivisection   and  such  methods  of  re- 

^  See  article  by  Prof.  Wm.  Lyon  Phelps,  Robert  Browning  as  Seen  by  his 
Son,  in  the  Century  Magazine,  Jan.,  1913,  (vol.  LXXXV,  no.  3),  pp.  417-420 
—  especially  Mr.  Barrett  Browning's  remarks  about  this  biography,  on  p. 
418. 


UFE  OF  BROWNING  7 

search.*  But  the  book  is  a  vast  collection  of  information 
on  Browning's  writings  and  things  referred  to  by  Browning, 
and  is  an  exceedingly  handy  "business  book"  for  Browning 
study. 

9.  A  list  of  some  of  the  other  editions  now  in  print  of 
Browning's  works,  and  of  books  about  Browning,  which 
would  naturally  stand  here,  has  been  transferred  to  the 
end  of  the  present  volume  of  lectures.  For  further  details 
in  this  line,  the  reader  is  therefore  referred  to  Appendix 
A.  We  have  no  desire  to  bury  up  Browning  in  books 
about  him.  Browning's  own  words  are  the  main  thing, 
and  any  books  about  him  and  his  writings  are  useful  only 
as  they  send  readers  to  his  own  words  with  greater  eager- 
ness and  better  understanding.  It  is  a  pitiful  thing  to 
be  always  reading  "about  it  and  about"  and  miss  the 
thing  itself.  The  placing  of  the  list  at  the  end  of  the 
volume  instead  of  at  this  point  does  not,  however,  at  all 
imply  that  books  there  mentioned  fall  short  in  value  or 
in  ability  to  lead  the  reader  to  Browning  himself,  but  only 
that  it  is  better  that  such  a  list  should  stand  there.  The 
list,  although  at  the  end  of  the  book,  is  in  the  reader's 
hands,  to  be  referred  to  at  any  time. 

II.  Dates  outlining  Browning's  Life 

The  following  dates  ^  will  serve  as  a  sort  of  outline  of 
Browning's  life : 

1  Cf.  his  attempt  (7th  ed.,  p.  105) 'to  interpret  a  part  of  Childe  Roland  in 
some  such  way.  Browning  was  against  vivisection,  but  he  was  not  arguing 
against  anything  of  the  sort  in  Childe  Roland. 

2  The  dates  have  been  checked  up  by  GriflSn  and  Minchin's  Life  of  Robert 
Browning.  In  revising  the  present  lecture  I  have  depended  on  the  same 
biography  also  for  accurate  details.  So  many  accounts  of  Browning's  life 
are  vague  and  deal  so  much  in  misleading  generalities  that  it  is  an  unalloyed 
pleasure  to  real  the  careful  and  painstaking  work  of  GrijQ&n  and  Michin. 


8  ^BROWNING  STUDIES 

1.  i8i2,  May  7,  Robert  Browning  was  born,  in  Camber- 
well,  a  suburb  of  London  on  its  southern  side.  His  sister 
Sarah  Anna  ^  was  born  Jan.  7,  1814.  These  were  the 
only  children  in  the  family.  The  house  in  which  they  were 
born  stood  in  Southampton  St.,  near  Dowlas  Common 
which  came  to  be  called  Cottage  Green  and  is  now  built 
up  although  the  name  Cottage  Green  remains.  While 
Sarah  Anna  was  still  an  infant,  the  family  moved  into 
another  house  on  the  same  street,  and  about  1824  they 
moved  from  that  house  to  Hanover  Cottage,  also  in  South- 
ampton St.,  and  this  they  occupied  for  16  years. 

2.  1820-26  (or  1821-26),  from  the  time  when  he  was 
eight  or  nine  years  old  until  he  was  fourteen,  the  boy 
attended  the  Rev.  Thomas  Ready's  school,  in  Peckham 
about  a  mile  from  home. 

3.  1828,  Oct.,  Browning  began  study  in  London  Uni- 
versity.^  He  was  then  16  years  old.  His  name  was 
entered  under  date  of  June  30,  1828,  but  classes  did  not 
begin  until  the  Fall  Term.  The  studies  were  Greek, 
Latin,  and  German.  He  continued  for  one  term,  but  left 
abruptly  during  the  second  term,  some  time  after  Christ- 
mas.    This  was  his  only  college  education. 

4.  1 829 ,  in  the  spring,  he  decided  on  poetry  for  his  life-work. 

^  Her  name  stands  Sarah  Anna  written  by  her  father's  hand  in  the  family 
Bible  (record  copied  by  Grif&n  and  Minchin  and  printed  at  the  beginning 
of  their  Life  of  Browning),  but  the  two  names  became  later  combined  into 
Sarianna. 

'  This  institution  from  its  inception  in  1825  was  known  as  London  Uni- 
versity, but  received  a  charter  in  1836  as  University  College.  Hence  the 
confusion  in  references  to  Browning's  studying  there,  —  some  saying  he 
studied  at  London  University,  some  saying  at  University  College,  London. 
It  was  called  London  University  when  Browning  attended  it.  University 
College,  London,  still  continues  on  the  original  site.  The  fact  that  up  to 
1836  it  was  called  London  University  should  not  confuse  it  with  the  present 
University  of  London. 


^      LIFE  OF  BROWNING  9 

5.  1834,  he  travelled  to  St.  Petersburg  with  Chevalier 
George  de  Benkhausen,  the  Russian  Consul- General  to 
England.  Left  London  Saturday,  Mch.  i,  and  was  back 
in  England  in  three  months. 

6.  1838,  first  *  visit  to  Italy.  Sailed  on  the  afternoon 
of  Friday,  April  13,  landed  at  Trieste  May  30,  and  arrived 
at  Venice  Wednesday  morning,  June  i.  Within  the  next 
three  weeks  he  visited  many  of  the  cities  in  that  part  of 
Italy,  and  returned  to  Venice.  Then  went  to  Verona, 
and  journeyed  home  by  way  of  the  Tyrol  and  the  Rhine. 

7.  1840,  Dec,  the  Browning  family  left  Camberwell 
and  moved  to  Hatcham,  another  suburb.  The  poet  made 
his  home  with  his  parents  until  his  marriage. 

8.  1844,  his  second  Italian  journey,  leaving  England  in 
the  summer  and  returning  in  December. 

9.  1845,  May  20,  Robert  Browning  first  met  Elizabeth 
Barrett.  She  had  received  her  first  letter  from  him  on 
Jan.  10,  1845,  but  it  was  some  months  before  he  could  see 
her. 

10.  1846,  Sept.  12,  Saturday,  about  noon  or  a  little 
before,  Robert  Browning  and  Ehzabeth  Barrett  were 
married  at  St.  Marylebone  Church,  London.  It  was  a 
secret  marriage,  her  two  sisters  knowing  it,  but  her  father 
not  knowing.  The  only  witnesses  were  Miss  Barrett's 
maid  and  Browning's  cousin  James  Silverthorne. 

11.  1846,  Sept.  19,  Saturday  afternoon  (just  a  week 
later),  she  stole  out  of  her  father's  house.  No.  50  Wimpole 
St.,  London,  with  her  maid  and  her  spaniel.  Flush,  went 
around  the  comer  to  Hodgson's  bookstore  in  Great  Maryle- 
bone St.  and  met  Robert  Browning.    They  took  the  5  :  00 

^  "This  was  Browning's  first  Italian  visit;  he  did  not,  as  has  been  re- 
peatedly stated,  visit  Italy  in  1834."  —  Griffin  and  Minchin,  Life,  pp.  94, 
95,  footnote. 


10  *  BROWNING  STUDIES 

P.M.  train  for  Southampton,  and  so  to  Paris  and  from  there 
to  Italy.  Her  father  never  forgave  her  and  never  saw  her 
again. 

12.  1846-47,  they  spent  the  winter  in  Pisa. 

13.  1847,  April,  they  came  to  Florence.  At  first  they 
took  furnished  apartments  in  the  Via  delle  Belle  Donne, 
close  to  the  Piazza  Santa  Maria  Novella.  That  summer, 
leaving  those  apartments  to  seek  cooler  quarters,  they 
took  a  suite  of  rooms  up  one  flight  of  stairs  ^  in  the  Casa 
Guidi,^  south  of  the  Arno,  at  the  corner  of  the  Via  Maggio 
and  the  Via  Mazetta,  almost  opposite  the  Pitti  Palace. 
In  October,  they  moved  to  other  furnished  rooms  in  the 
Piazza  Pitti,  to  get  more  sunlight  for  the  winter. 

14.  1848,  May,  they  leased  the  flat  in  the  Casa  Guidi 
which  they  had  occupied  the  summer  before,  —  seven 
rooms,  the  favorite  suite  of  the  last  Count  Guidi.  They 
took  the  rooms  unfurnished,  paying  an  annual  rental  of 
25  guineas  (between  $125  and  $130).  This  was  their 
home.  They  often  travelled  and  sometimes  rented  their 
flat  furnished,  in  their  absence,  but  returned  here  when 
they  came  *'home." 

15.  1848,  summer,  they  travelled  on  the  east  side  of 
Italy,  visiting  Fano,  Ancona,  Rimini,  and  Ravenna. 

16.  1849,  Mch.  9,  their  son,  Robert  Wiedemann  Barrett 
Browning,^  was  born  in  the  Casa  Guidi.  He  was  their 
only  child. 

17.  1849,   Robert  Browning's  mother  died   this  year, 

1  The  rooms  are  on  what  in  Europe  is  called  the  first  floor,  i.e.  the  floor 
up  one  flight,  not  the  street  floor.  In  America,  we  usually  call  that  the 
second  floor. 

*  So  named  from  the  fact  that  it  was  formerly  the  residence  of  the  Counts 
Guidi.    Casa  signifies  "house,"  or  "home." 

'  Usually  spoken  of,  in  later  years,  as  Mr.  R.  Barrett  Browning,  or  Mr. 
Barrett  Browning. 


UFE  OF  BROWNING  II 

at  the  home  of  the  family  in  Hatcham.    Her  death  oc- 
curred soon  after  the  poet's  son  was  born. 

1 8.  1849,  July-Oct.,  Browning  and  his  wife  and  their 
boy  spent  the  summer  at  the  Baths  of  Lucca.  There  are 
three  villages  in  the  narrow  valley,  —  the  lowest  called 
Ponte,  the  next  Alia  Villa,  and  the  third  Bagni  Caldi. 
The  Brownings  occupied  a  house  in  the  third  and  highest 
village. 

19.  1 85 1,  after  nearly  five  years'  absence,  they  came  to 
London,  stopping  a  month  in  Venice,  and  stopping  also 
at  Padua  and  Milan,  crossing  the  Alps  by  coach  over  the 
St.  Gotthard  Pass,  and  spending  several  weeks  in  Paris. 
They  arrived  in  London  late  in  July,  and  started  back  to 
Paris  Sept.  25. 

20.  1851-52,  they  spent  the  winter  in  Paris.  In  Nov. 
the  poet's  father  and  sister  visited  them  there.  In  April 
the  lease  which  his  father  had  on  the  house  at  Hatcham 
expired,  and  he  and  his  daughter  settled  in  Paris  that 
spring.  This  was  their  permanent  residence  from  that 
time  till  the  father's  death. 

21.  1852,  end  of  June,  the  poet  and  his  wife  and  son 
returned  to  London  and  spent  the  summer  there,  and  set 
out  for  Italy  again  early  in  Nov.  They  arrived  at  the 
Casa  Guidi  in  Florence  after  an  absence  of  16  months. 

22.  1853,  summer,  again  at  the  Baths  of  Lucca,  this 
time  in  the  middle  village,  Alia  Villa.  Returned  to  Flor- 
ence in  Oct.,  but  stayed  only  a  short  time. 

23.  1853-54,  their  first  winter  in  Rome.  Returned  to 
Florence  near  the  end  of  May,  1854. 

24.  1855,  they  returned  to  London,  arriving  there  the 
second  week  in  June.  From  there  they  went  to  Paris  in 
October. 

25.  1855-56,  winter  spent  in  Paris. 


12  .BROWNING  STUDIES 

26.  1856,  near  the  end  of  June,  they  went  back  to 
England  again,  and  spent  the  summer  in  London,  and  at 
Ventnor  and  West  Cowes,  on  the  Isle  of  Wight,  —  starting 
back  to  Italy  from  London  in  October. 

27.  1856-57,  winter  in  Florence.  In  April,  1857,  Mrs. 
Browning's  father  died  in  London. 

28.  1857,  July-Oct.,  spent  again  at  Alia  Villa,  the 
middle  village  of  the  Baths  of  Lucca. 

29.  1857-58,  another  winter  in  Florence. 

30.  1858,  in  the  spring,  started  for  France,  arriving  in 
Paris  on  the  birthday  of  the  poet's  father.  Stayed  two 
weeks  in  Paris,  and  then  they  all  (Browning  and  his  family, 
and  his  father  and  his  sister)  went  to  Normandy  and  stayed 
eight  weeks  by  the  seaside  in  the  outskirts  of  Havre.  Re- 
turned to  Paris  for  four  weeks  more.  Then  started  for 
Italy  Oct.  12.     Stayed  only  a  month  in  Florence. 

31.  1858-59,  wintered  in  Rome.  The  winter  climate 
of  Rome  was  found  to  be  better  for  Mrs.  Browning's 
health  than  the  winter  climate  of  Florence.  So  three 
consecutive  winters  were  spent  in  Rome. 

32.  1859,  May,  returned  to  Florence.  August,  went 
to  Siena  for  the  rest  of  the  summer;  lived  in  the  Villa 
Alberti  at  Marciano,  two  miles  out  of  the  city.  Left 
there  in  the  autumn  and  stopped  briefly  in  Florence. 

33.  1859-60,  winter  in  Rome. 

34.  i860,  summer  was  spent  at  the  same  house  occupied 
the  preceding  summer,  near  Siena.  Returned  to  Rome  in 
Sept. 

35.  1860-61,  winter  in  Rome. 

36.  1861,  spring,  Mrs.  Browning,  whose  health  had 
been  growing  more  frail  for  several  years,  had  a  sharp 
and  alarming  attack  and  it  seemed  as  if  she  would  strangle. 
But  she  recovered  sufficiently  to  travel  to  Florence.    They 


LIFE  OF  BROWNING  13 

arrived  in  Florence  June  6.  The  last  stage  of  her  illness 
began  on  June  23,  but  she  was  not  confined  to  her  room 
until  the  28th.  Even  then  she  thought  she  was  better 
in  the  evening. 

37.  1861,  June  29,  about  four  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
Mrs.  Browning  died,  in  the  Casa  Guidi.  There  is  a  tablet 
on  the  house,  placed  there  by  the  municipality  of  Florence, 
with  an  inscription  by  the  Italian  poet  and  patriot  Tom- 
maseo :  ^ 

"Here  wrote  and  died  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  who  .  .  . 
made  of  her  verse  a  golden  link  between  Italy  and  England." 

38.  1861,  Aug.,  Browning  came  to  Paris  with  his  son. 
He  never  saw  Florence  again.  That  summer  he  spent 
some  weeks,  his  father  and  sister  with  him,  at  St.  Enoget. 
He  came  with  his  boy  to  London  in  October.  After  some 
months,  he  leased  a  house.  No.  19  Warwick  Crescent,  — 
at  first  temporarily,  but  it  proved  satisfactory  and  he 
kept  it.     This  was  his  home  for  the  next  25  years. 

39.  1862,  spring,  he  was  offered  the  editorship  of  the 
Corn  hill  Magazine  ^  but  decUned  it. 

40.  1862,  smnmer  at  Cambo  and  Biarritz  in  France. 

41.  1865,  he  visited  Oxford  to  see  Benjamin  Jowett, 
Senior  Tutor  (afterwards  Master)  of  Balliol,  with  a  view 
to  putting  his  son  in  College.  Jowett's  friendship  meant 
much  to  Browning  in  the  years  that  followed. 

42.  1866,  his  father  died  in  Paris,  and  Robert  Browning 
took  his  sister  Sarianna  to  London  to  make  her  home  with 
him.  She  never  married.  They  were  constant  compan- 
ions from  that  time. 

*The  inscription  is  in  Italian  on  the  tablet,  complete  as  follows:  "Qui 
scrisse  e  mori  Elizabetta  Barrett  Browning,  che  in  cuore  di  donna  conciliava 
scienza  di  dotto  e  spirito  di  poeta,  e  face  del  suo  verso  aureo  anello  fra  Italia 
c  Inghilterra.    Pone  questa  lapide  Firenze  grata  1861," 


14  BROWNING  STUDIES 

43.  1866,  summer,  spent  at  Croisic  in  Brittany,  as  was 
also  the  summer  of  the  year  following.  Several  other 
summers' were  spent  in  Brittany  (those  of  1869  and  '70 
were  at  St.  Aubin).  On  their  summer  holidays  1873-77, 
in  France  and  Switzerland,  Miss  Anne  Egerton  Smith  was 
with  the  Brownings. 

44.  1867,  Browning  received  from  the  University  of 
Oxford  the  degree  of  M.A.  The  same  year  he  was  made 
Honorary  Fellow  of  Balliol  College. 

45.  1868,  he  was  offered  the  position  of  Lord  Rector^ 
of  St.  Andrews  University,  but  declined  it. 

46.  1875,  the  Lord  Rectorship  of  the  University  of 
Glasgow  was  offered  to  him,  but  he  declined  it.  He  de- 
cHned  it  again  in  1884. 

47.  1878,  Browning  visited  Venice  and  Asolo  again, 
breaking  the  journey  at  the  Spliigen  Pass.  He  had  not 
seen  Italy  for  17  years.  He  had  not  been  in  Asolo  for 
40  years.  From  1878  on,  his  autumns  were  usually  spent 
in  north  Italy,  stopping  somewhere  on  the  way  in  the 
Alps  during  five  or  six  of  the  warmer  weeks  preceding. 
Only  three  autumns  was  he  prevented  by  circumstances  from 
going  to  Italy — 1882, 1884,  and  1886.  He  did  not  go  further 
south  than  Venice.     Venice  held  him  by  strong  affection. 

48.  1879,  he  received  the  degree  of  LL.D.  from  Cam- 
bridge University. 

49.  1881,  the  Browning  Society  of  London  was  founded. 
The  chief  movers  were  Dr.  F.  J.  Furnivall  and  Miss  Emily 
Hickey.  There  were  soon  branches  in  many  parts  of  the 
United  Kingdom.  The  forming  of  this  Society  was  a 
great  compliment  to  Robert  Browning,  and  its  discussions 
and  publications  increased  materially  the  sale  of  his  works. 

^  i.e.  President  of  the  University,  to  use  the  title  which  goes  with  the 
similar  office  in  the  majority  of  American  universities. 


LIFE  OF  BROWNING  1 5 

50.  1882,  Browning  received  the  degree  of  D.C.L. 
from  Oxford  University. 

51.  1884,  he  received  the  degree  of  LL.D.  from  the 
University  of  Edinburgh. 

52.  1885,  Browning's  son  went  with  him  and  his  sister 
to  Venice.  He  had  not  been  there  since  he  was  a  child. 
The  idea  of  buying  a  palace  in  Venice  took  hold  upon 
Browning  and  his  son  on  this  visit,  and  a  purchase  was 
almost  concluded,  but  came  to  naught. 

53.  1887,  June,  Browning  gave  up  the  house  on  War- 
wick Crescent,  London,  which  had  been  his  home  for  so 
many  years,  and  took  a  better  and  roomier  house  in  De 
Vere  Gardens. 

54.  1887,  ^ct.,  his  son  married  Fannie  Coddington,  of 
New  York. 

55.  1888,  Aug.,  on  his  way  to  Venice  this  year.  Brown- 
ing's stop  was  at  Primiero  in  the  Dolomite  Alps.  His 
son  had  bought  the  Rezzonico  Palace  (Palazzo  Rezzonico) 
on  the  Grand  Canal,  although  he  had  not  yet  moved  in. 
But  this  was  a  special  inducement  to  Browning  to  make 
the  journey  to  Venice,  and  he  stayed  there  unusually  long. 

56.  1889,  Feb.,  he  was  again  in  London. 

57.  1889,  summer.  Browning  visited  all  his  favorite 
haunts  in  England,  not  knowing  that  it  was  his  last  visit. 

58.  1889,  that  summer,  Mrs.  Arthur  Bronson,  an 
American  lady  in  whose  house  in  Venice  Browning  and 
his  sister  had  stayed  so  many  times,  urged  them  to  come 
and  visit  her  in  Asolo.  She  had  there  a  house,  ^'  La  Mura," 
which  was  niched  in  one  of  the  towers  of  the  city  wall  and 
which  she  occupied  when  the  weather  was  hot  in  Venice. 
To  Asolo,  then,  on  their  way  to  Venice,  the  poet  and  his 
sister  came,  toward  the  end  of  the  summer,  and  here  they 
spent  a  number  of  weeks. 


j6  BROWNING  STUDIES 

59.  1889,  Nov.  I,  Browning  and  his  sister  arrived  at 
his  son's  house  in  Venice.  Late  in  November,  after  his 
usual  walk,  it  was  noticed  that  Browning  had  a  cold.  He 
never  would  take  much  care  of  himself.^  The  cold  de- 
veloped into  bronchitis  and  on  Dec.  i  his  son's  physician 
was  called.  The  bronchitis  grew  better,  but  symptoms 
developed,  threatening  heart-failure.  On  the  evening  of 
Dec.  12,  he  himself  was  aware  that  the  end  was  near. 

60.  1889,  Dec.  12,  Thursday,  at  10:00  p.m.,  Robert 
Browning  died  without  pain,  in  the  Palazzo  Rezzonico, 
his  son's  house  in  Venice.  Upon  this  house  the  city  of 
Venice  has  placed  a  tablet  to  Robert  Browning,  which 
contains  two  lines  of  his  own :  ^ 

"Open  my  heart  and  you  will  see 
Graved  inside  of  it,  'Italy.' " 

61.  1889,  Dec.  15,  Sunday,  a  private  funeral  service 
was  held  in  the  house,  and  then  the  body  was  taken,  as 
the  Venetian  law  requires,  to  the  mortuary  island  San 
Michele  and  placed  in  the  chapel  there.  The  ceremony 
of  transferring  the  body  to  this  place  was  very  impressive, 
—  a  great  flotilla  of  gondolas  following  the  funeral  barge. 

62.  1889,  I^GC.  31,  Robert  Browning  was  buried  in 
Westminster  Abbey. 

1  Cf .  what  Barrett  Browning  said  to  Prof.  Phelps  of  his  father's  last  illness 
in  the  article  in  the  Century  Magazine,  Jan.,  1913,  already  referred  to. 
*  The  inscription  reads : 

A 
Roberto  Browning 

MORTO   IN   QUESTO   PaLAZZO 
IL   12   DiCEMBRE    1 889 

Venezia 
Pose 

The  lines  from  Browning  are  below  toward  the  right  hand  comer.  They 
are  from  "De  Gustibus  — "  Browning's  Works,  Globe  Ed.,  p.  239,  11.  17,  18. 
It  may  be  necessary  to  repeat  that,  throughout  these  lectures,  the  references 
to  Browning's  works  are  made  to  the  Globe  Edition,  i  vol.,  New  York,  1907. 


LIFE  OF  BROWNING  1 7 

III.  A   More    Connected   Account    of    Browning's 

Life 

Within  the  framework  of  these  bare  dates  took  place  the 
earthly  experience  of  the  man  who  wrote  at  the  age  of 
twenty :  ^ 

"I  am  made  up  of  an  intensest  life." 

That  intensity  of  life  increased  rather  than  diminished,  as 
the  years  went  by.  As  Stopford  Brooke  ^  well  says :  "  It 
was  a  life  lived  fully,  kindly,  lovingly,  at  its  just  height, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end." 

I.  Robert  Browning's  father,  also  named  Robert  Brown- 
ing, held  a  position  in  the  Bank  of  England.*  He  was 
born  in  1782,  in  Battersea,  a  suburb  lying  on  the  bank  of 
the  Thames,  southwest  of  London.  He  was,  on  his  father's 
side,  of  an  old  English  family,  the  Brownings  of  Dorset- 
shire and  Wiltshire.  His  mother  was  a  West  Indian  lady  ^ 
who  owned  a  large  estate  at  St.  Kitt's.  She  died  when 
he  was  seven  years  old.  He  was  sent  to  the  West  Indies 
at  the  age  of  twelve,  on  account  of  his  father's  second 
marriage,  but,  when  he  grew  older,  refused  to  stay  on  the 
plantation  because  of  his  hatred  of  slavery,  and  returned 
to  England  at  the  age  of  twenty,  and  presently  secured  a 
clerkship  in  the  Bank.    With  his  position  in  the  Bank, 

*InPaw/««e,p.  5,1. 3. 

'  Stopford  A.  Brooke,  The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning,  New  York,  1902, 
P  441. 

'  He  was  connected  with  the  Bank  nearly  50  years,  1803-185  2. 

*  Many  accounts  of  Browning's  life  speak  of  his  father's  mother  as  a 
'' Creole."  The  word  is  avoided  here  simply  because  it  is  so  misunderstood. 
The  word  Creole  correctly  used  does  not  at  all  imply  that  there  is  any  ad- 
1  nixture  of  African  blood.  It  is  properly  applied  to  descendants  of  French  or 
Spanish  settlers  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  as  in  Louisiana,  Florida, 
t  r  the  West  Indies. 


l8  BROWNING  STUDIES 

he  had  money  enough  and  time  enough  for  intellectual 
development  and  the  accumulation  of  a  fine  collection 
of  books.  He  had  immense  vitality,  unusual  skill  in 
drawing,  great  intellectual  keenness,  and  wide  and  various 
learning.  Something  of  the  ideals  and  moral  fiber  of  the 
man  may  be  seen  in  the  fact  that,  because  he  could  not 
tolerate  slavery,  he  sacrificed  the  plantation  inherited 
from  his  mother,  which  would  have  yielded  him  wealth. 

2.  His  wife,  Sarah  Anna  ^  Wiedemann,  the  mother  of 
Robert  Browning  the  poet,  was  of  mixed  Scotch-German 
blood,  —  daughter  of  a  Scotch  mother  and  a  German 
father,  William  Wiedemann,  a  shipowner  at  Dundee, 
who  had  come  from  Hamburg.  She  was  born  in  Dundee, 
but  she  and  her  sister  resided  for  some  time  with  an  uncle 
in  Camberwell.  She  did  not  have  the  vigorous  health 
which  her  husband  had  and,  in  the  latter  part  of  her  life 
especially,  suffered  much  from  neuralgia.  She  was  gentle, 
deeply  religious,^  and  passionately  fond  of  music. 

3.  We  hear  it  said  that  ''blood  will  tell."  It  told  in 
the  case  of  the  poet  Robert  Browning,  (a)  From  his 
father  he  received  splendid  health  and  almost  inexhaustible 
vitality,  intellectual  eagerness  and  capacity,  and  a  taste 
for  art.  (b)  From  his  mother,  a  thoroughly  German 
metaphysical  turn  of  mind,  a  fondness  for  music  and  ability 
in  music,  and  a  deeply  reverent  and  sometimes  mystical 
attitude  toward  the  things  invisible  and  eternal. 

^  So  stands  the  name  in  her  husband's  hand-writing  in  the  family  Bible : 
"Robert  Browning  married  to  Sarah  Anna  Wiedemann  at  Camberwell 
Feb  19  181 1." 

(Griffin  and  Minchin,  Life,  p.  i). 
Her  name  and  her  daughter's  are  usually  written  Sarianna. 

2  Browning's  mother  became  a  member  of  the  Congregational  Church  in 
York  St.,  Walworth,  in  1806,  and  his  father,  though  brought  up  in  the 
Church  of  England,  joined  the  Congregational  Church  inn 820. 


LIFE  OF  BROWNING  19 

4.  One  of  Browning's  earliest  recollections  is  of  himself 
sitting  on  his  father's  knee  before  the  fire  in  the  Ubrary, 
Ustening  with  rapt  attention  as  his  father  told  him  the  tale 
of  the  siege  of  Troy,  while  he  heard  his  mother  in  the  next 
room  singing  a  low  GaeHc  lament.  It  would  not  be  strange, 
if  that  boy  should  amount  to  something. 

5.  Camberwell,  where  the  boy  was  bom,  though  now 
really  built  up  with  London  south  of  the  Thames,  was 
then  a  village,  lying  between  the  slopes  of  Denmark  Hill, 
Heme  Hill,  and  Champion  Hill.  Its  church  tower  could 
be  seen  from  the  Thames  bridges.  Camberwell  and  its 
vicinity  were  well-known  as  a  place  of  mral  beauty,^  — 
with  bright  fields,  hedgerows,  and  fine  trees.  The  two 
strains  of  interest  which  gave  such  equilibrium  to  Brown- 
ing's hfe  were  both  here  at  the  beginning,  —  the  world  of 
Nature  around  him,  the  teeming  city  and  the  *' world  of 
men"  ^  just  at  hand. 

6.  Robert  Browning  was  chiefly  a  self-educated  man. 
(a)  The  beginning  of  his  education  was  found  in  the  store- 
house of  his  father's  mind,  and,  as  years  went  on,  it  was 
continued  in  his  father's  books,  (b)  He  was  sent  to  a 
day-school,  taught  by  a  woman  near  his  home,  but  had  to 
be  removed  because  he  was  so  much  more  proficient  in 
reading  and  spelKng  than  the  other  pupils  were  that  it 
aroused  the  jealousy  of  their  parents,  (c)  He  was  very 
fond  of  outdoor  life  and  sports,  and  of  all  living  things. 
In  the  course  of  the  years,  his  pets  included  owls,  monkeys, 
magpies,  hedgehogs,  an  eagle,  a  toad,  and  two  snakes. 

^  It  is  significant  that  a  butterfly,  the  Vanessa  antiopa,  rare  in  England 
though  common  in  central  and  southern  Europe,  was  found  in  Camberwell 
so  much  more  frequently  than  anywhere  else  that  its  common  name  is  the 
Camberwell  Beauty. 

'  Browning,  Parting  at  Morning,  p.  228, 1.  30 : 

"And  the  need  of  a  world  of  men  for  me." 


20  BROWNING  STUDIES 

(d)  From  the  age  of  eight  or  nine  until  he  was  fourteen 
he  attended,  as  a  weekly  boarder,  a  school  conducted  by 
the  Rev.  Thomas  Ready  and  his  sisters  in  Peckham. 
He  was  first  taught  and  looked  after  by  the  Misses  Ready, 
and,  as  he  grew  older,  he  was  taught  by  Mr.  Ready  him- 
self. It  was  a  good  school,  as  schools  went  in  those  days, 
but  he  was  always  impatient  with  the  petty  and  mechanical 
teaching  to  which  he  was  subjected,  and  got  more  from  the 
days  spent  at  home  on  the  hill  above  the  church  or  in  the 
library  with  his  father's  books.  When  he  was  nearly 
thirty,  passing  Ready's  school  with  Alfred  Domett,  he 
spoke  of  ''the  disgust^  with  which  he  always  thought  of 
the  place,"  and  fifty  years  after  those  schooldays  he  told 
Domett  that  ''they  taught  him  nothing  there."  (e)  From 
the  age  of  14  onward,  he  went  on  with  his  studies  at  home, 
—  two  years  with  a  tutor  in  French,  two  teachers  in  music 
(one  for  theory  and  the  other  for  technique),  much  reading, 
and  lessons  in  dancing,  riding,  boxing,  and  fencing.  (/)  His 
only  other  attendance  at  school  was  at  London  University 
in  Gower  St.,  in  the  founding  of  which  his  father  was  a 
shareholder,  subscribing  £icx).  The  boy  began  there  the 
fall  after  he  was  sixteen.  It  is  usually  said  that  his  chief 
study  was  Greek.  He  continued  less  than  two  terms. 
This  was  the  only  college  education  he  ever  received, 
and  with  this  his  formal  education  stopped,  although  he 
attended,  during  the  year  following,  some  of  Dr.  Blundell's 
lectures  at  Guy's  Hospital,  (g)  But  though  his  formal 
education  had  ceased,  he  had  just  begun.  All  that  vast 
education  which  makes  him  the  most  learned  man  that 
ever  wrote  EngHsh  verse  he  accumulated  for  himself  in 
the  years  that  followed. 

1  Commenting  on  this  remark,  Grifl&n  and  Minchin  explain  that  what 
disgusted  him  was  the  restraint  put  upon  his  imaginative  faculties. 


LIFE  OF  BROWNING  21 

7.  At  the  age  of  17,  in  the  spring  following  his  college 
experience,  Robert  Browning  dehberately  looked  life  in 
the  face  and  deliberately  decided  to  make  poetry  his  Kfe- 
work.  He  went  at  once  into  his  preparation  for  it,  one  of 
his  first  moves  being  to  read  and  digest  the  whole  of  Dr. 
Samuel  Johnson's  Dictionary.  Then  he  plunged  into 
reading,  at  his  home  in  Camberwell  and  especially  in  the 
British  Museum. 

8.  His  first  published  literary  work  was  Pauline,  written 
when  he  was  20  years  old.  The  date  at  the  end  of  the 
poem,  Oct.  22,  1832,  is  the  date  of  the  conception  of  the 
plan  of  which  Pauline  is  a  part.  On  that  evening  he  had 
seen  Edmund  Kean  play  in  Richard  III  at  Richmond. 
The  date  of  the  Introduction,  London,  January,  1833, 
is  the  date  of  the  completion  of  this  fragment,  —  the  only 
part  of  the  work  ever  written.  No  publisher  would  take 
the  risk  on  it.  His  aunt,  Mrs.  James  Silverthorne,  fur- 
nished the  money  ^  to  pay  for  its  publication.  It  was  pub- 
lished, without  the  author's  name,  by  Saunders  and  Otley, 
London, 1833. 

The  poem  is  crude  and  amateurish  but  full  of  unusual 
promise.  On  the  fly  leaf  of  his  own  copy  now  in  the  Dyce 
and  Forster  Library  at  the  South  Kensington  Museum, 
there  is,  in  Browning's  handwriting,  this:  *'The  following 
poem  was  written  in  pursuance  of  a  foolish  plan  which 
occupied  me  mightily  for  a  time,  and  which  had  for  its 
object  the  enabhng  me  to  assume  and  realize  I  know  not 
how  many  different  characters.  .  .  .  Only  this  crab 
remains  of  the  shapely  Tree  of  Life  in  this  Fool's 
Paradise   of   mine.  —  R.    B."    The   poem  was  soon  for- 

^  Mrs.  Silverthorne  was  his  mother's  sister  Christiana.  Griffin  and  Min- 
chin  (p.  57)  relate  that  she  gave  him  £30  to  defray  the  cost  of  pubhshing 
Pauline;  the  cost  was  £26  55.,  and  the  rest  was  spent  for  advertising. 


22  BROWNING  STUDIES 

gotten/  and  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  discovered  a  copy  of  it 
in  the  British  Museum  20  years  afterward  and  guessed  it 
was  by  Browning  who  reluctantly  acknowledged  it.  In  the 
Preface  to  his  Works,  Edition  of  1868,  Browning  says: 
''The  first  piece  in  the  series  I  acknowledge  and  retain  with 
extreme  repugnance,  and  indeed  purely  of  necessity," 
and  goes  on  to  explain  that  he  includes  it  in  order  to  fore- 
stall unauthorized  reprints  of  it. 

The  poem  is  dominated  entirely  by  the  spirit  of  Shelley, 
who  is  frequently  addressed  as  ''Sun-treader,"  e.g. 

"Sun-treader,  life  and  light  be  thine  for  ever ! "  ^ 
"  Sun-treader,  I  believe  in  God  and  truth 
And  love."  ^ 

Shelley  had  come  into  Browning's  Hfe  with  tremendous 
force  near  the  end  of  Browning's  sixteenth  year,^  through  a 
copy  of  a  Httle  pirated  edition  of  Queen  Mob  displayed 
on  a  second-hand  bookstall  with  a  label  attached:  ''Mr. 
Shelley's  Atheistical  Poem;  very  scarce."  This  the  boy 
bought  and  devoured.  Under  its  influence,^  he  professed 
himself  an  atheist.  His  mother  bought  Shelley's  works, 
i.e.  all  of  his  books  of  which  a  copy  could  be  obtained, 
and  presented  them  to  her  son  on  his  sixteenth  birthday. 
He  soon  gave  up  his  atheism,  but  didn't  lose  faith  in  Shelley, 
thinking  he  had  simply  misunderstood  him,  —  which  was 
the  case :   Shelley  is  no  atheist. 


*  At  its  publication  the  book  received  a  long  notice  in  the  Monthly  R 
pository  and  a  notice  also  in  The  Athenaum. 

^P.  3,1.  63.  "P.  13,  U.  81,  82. 

*  Griffin  and  Minchin,  Life,  p.  51. 
^  Shelley's  long  note  in  connection  with  his  Queen  Mob  also  converted 

Browning  to  vegetarianism,  to  which  he  stuck  stubbornly  for  two  years, 
until  weakened  eyesight  caused  him  to  abandon  it. 

Through  acquaintance  with  Shelley's  writings,  he  came  also  to  rei 
Keats. 


IS  I 


LIFE  OF  BROWNING 


23 


Pauline,  deep-dyed  with  Shelley's  spirit,  has  both  auto- 
biographical and  literary  value.  And  the  potency  is  there 
of  that  splendid  imagination  and  intensity  of  soul  which 
mark  the  mature  work  of  Browning.  Surely,  no  boy  who 
writes  at  twenty  these  lines  ^  will  fail  to  write  well  in  later 
years :  To  Shelley  — 

"Thou  must  be  ever  with  me,  most  in  gloom 
If  such  must  come,  but  chiefly  when  I  die. 
For  I  seem,  dying,  as  one  going  in  the  dark 
To  fight  a  giant :  but  live  thou  for  ever 
And  be  to  all  what  thou  hast  been  to  me!" 

9.  Browning's  first  long  journey  was  taken  when  he 
was  almost  22.  Then  he  went  to  St.  Petersburg  on  in- 
vitation of  the  Russian  Consul- General  who  had  to  make 
a  trip  to  his  capital  on  a  special  mission.  Browning  went 
nominally  as  his  Secretary.  The  packets  of  the  General 
Steam  Navigation  Co.  were  running  from  London  to 
Ostend  and  Rotterdam.  Presumably  these  travellers 
landed  at  Rotterdam,  but  beyond  that  they  were  obhged 
to  drive  1500  miles  in  mail  coaches  or  by  private  con- 
veyances, to  reach  their  destination.  The  journey  to 
Russia  contributed  vastly  to  the  eager  mind  of  Browning, 
but  did  not  strike  the  chord  in  him  which  Italy  did.  A 
visit  to  north  Italy  in  1838  brought  him  under  the  spell 
of  that  country,  and  he  went  again  for  a  second  visit  six 
years  later.    He  called  Italy  his  university. 

10.  Returning  late  in  1844  from  his  second  Italian 
travel.  Browning  took  up  a  copy  of  the  Poems  of  EHzabeth 
Barrett  published  that  summer,  and  found  himself,  in 
Lady  Geraldine's  Courtship  (Stanza  xxi),  classed  with 
Wordsworth  and  Tennyson.  He  was  much  pleased,  not 
only  at  what  was  said  of  himself,  but  pleased  with  the 

1  P.  13,  U.  85-89. 


24  BROWNING  STUDIES 

Poems  in  general.  The  book  was  meeting  with  great 
success,  and  many  were  writing  to  Miss  Barrett  to  express 
their  approval.  Urged  by  John  Kenyon,  her  cousin, 
Browning  finally  wrote  to  her.  This  began  the  corre- 
spondence which  led  to  their  meeting  and  falling  in  love. 
They  had  been  interested  in  each  other's  writings  for 
some  years  and  in  each  other's  treatment  at  the  hands  of 
the  critics  and  the  public,  and  each  had  known  something 
of  the  attitude  of  the  other.  As  early  as  1841,  Mr.  Kenyon 
had  desired  to  introduce  Browning  to  his  cousin,  but  she 
did  not  feel  physically  equal  to  meeting  him. 

Elizabeth  Barrett  had  a  rare  mind  but  frail  health, 
and  had  been,  when  Browning  met  her,  an  invalid  for 
seven  years,  following  upon  the  rupturing  of  a  bloodvessel 
in  the  lungs.  The  Barrett  family  Hved  in  Wimpole  St., 
London,  in  a  house  which  her  father  bought  in  1838.  After 
that,  she  had  been  in  Torquay  some  time  for  her  health, 
but  it  was  even  further  shattered  by  grief  at  the  drowning 
of  her  favorite  brother,  Edward,  who  was  with  her  there, 
in  July,  1840.  She  had  gotten  back  to  London  and  for 
lave  years  she  hardly  got  out  of  the  house,  except  for  a 
few  hours  at  rare  intervals.  Most  of  the  time  she  did 
not  leave  her  room,  and  seldom  saw  anyone  but  members 
of  the  family.  As  was  inevitable,  she  was  morbid  and 
discouraged,  and  at  the  age  of  39  (she  was  six  years  older 
than  Browning)  she  considered  that  her  life  was  over. 

Into  her  illness  and  gloom  came  the  abounding  vitality 
and  love  of  Robert  Browning.  She  felt  keenly  that  she 
was  unworthy  ^  to  be  a  mate  for  her  princely  lover.  How 
much  she  felt  the  wonder  and  the  beauty  of  the  fact  that 
he  loved  her  may  be  gathered  from  her  Sonnets  from  the 
Portuguese.  Of  course,  these  have  nothing  to  do  with 
1  She  speaks  in  this  vein  in  many  of  the  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese. 


LIFE  OF  BROWNING  2$ 

Portuguese.^  The  name  serves  as  a  blind  to  conceal  how 
they  came  out  of  her  own  life.  No  more  exquisite  sonnets 
are  to  be  found  in  the  English  language.  They  stand 
undimmed  beside  Shakespeare's  own.  They  were  drawn 
from  her  ''heart's  ground/'  as  she  says,  in  those  days  when 
Browning  was  making  love  to  her.  She  fought  against 
it  for  a  long  time  from  a  sense  of  duty.  Her  father  was  a 
strange  man  and  very  much  opposed  to  any  of  his  children's 
marrying.^  When  they  did  so,  he  practically  disowned 
them.  On  account  of  her  ill-health,  his  attitude  in  her 
case  would  be  even  more  severe  than  in  the  case  of  the 
others.  But  Robert  Browning  had  found  his  affinity, 
and  was  not  the  man  to  be  discouraged. 

The  love-letters  of  Robert  Browning  and  Elizabeth 
Barrett  have  been  published  ^  by  their  son.  It  was  a 
pitiful  thing  to  do.  Such  letters  should  be  destroyed. 
They  are  not  for  the  cold  critical  public  eye.  Those 
letters  meant  much  to  the  lovers,  but  they  do  not  mean 
so  much  to  us.  There  is  in  them  too  little  restraint.  In 
Browning's  love-poems,  no  matter  how  intense  the  passion, 
there  is  splendid  restraint.  In  these  letters,  one  misses 
the  fine  element  of  restraint  too  much.    It  is  too  bad  that 

^  Browning  never  saw  these  Sonnets  until  the  winter  after  they  were 
married.  She  slipped  the  manuscript  into  his  pocket  one  morning  in  Pisa. 
The  Sonnets  were  privately  printed  at  Reading  in  1847  without  title  except 
"  Sonnets  by  E.  B.  B."  In  1850,  they  were  pubhshed  with  the  present  title, 
suggested  by  Mr.  Browning,  apropos  of  his  wife's  poem  Catarina  to  Camoens. 
What  makes  the  name  appropriate  is  the  fact  that  one  of  the  best  sonnet- 
writers  was  the  great  Portuguese  poet  Camoens  (c.  15  24-1 5  79).  In  a 
library  of  high  rank,  I  have  found  these  sonnets  of  Mrs.  Browning's  cata- 
logued as  Translations ! 

'  Elizabeth  Barrett  was  the  eldest  of  eleven  children.  Her  mother  died 
in  1828. 

'  Letters  of  Robert  Browning  and  Elizabeth  Barrett,  1845-1846,  2  vols. 
New  York,  Harper  and  Bros.,  1899. 


26  BROWNING  STUDIES 

they  were  published.  But  Browning  had  carefully  pre- 
served them,  while  he  had  destroyed  a  great  number  of 
other  letters,  and  his  son  was  not  willing  that  they  should 
fall  into  other  hands  and  be  pubHshed  very  likely  in  some 
garbled  form.  He  could  hardly  bring  himself  to  destroy 
them.  So  he  gave  them  to  the  public  in  their  entirety 
exactly  as  they  were.  It  should  be  added  that  they  con- 
tain much  that  is  of  biographical  value,  besides  their 
reference  to  the  years  1845-46. 

II.  In  the  summer  of  1845,  Miss  Barrett  grew  stronger, 
and  her  physician  thought  her  able  to  travel  to  Italy  and 
recommended  that  she  should  spend  the  following  winter 
in  Pisa,  then  a  favorite  climatic  resort.  Her  father  would 
not  give  his  consent  and  continued  rigid  in  his  refusal. 
Such  was  the  situation  for  a  year.  Meantime  Robert 
Browning  continued  calling  once  or  twice  a  week,  writing 
many  letters,  and  sending  her  flowers.^  It  was  learned 
from  her  father  that  her  going  to  Italy  under  any  circum- 
stances would  be  ^*  under  his  heaviest  displeasure,"  and 
it  was  plain  that  it  would  be  worse  than  useless  for  Brown- 
ing to  ask  her  father  for  her  hand  in  marriage.  It  seemed 
to  Browning  and  to  her  that  the  circumstances  justified 
their  taking  affairs  into  their  own  hands.  Therefore, 
they  were  secretly  married  at  St.  Marylebone  Church  on 
Sept.  12,  1846,  and,  just  a  week  later,  they  left  for  Paris, 
where  they  joined  Mrs.  Jameson  and  her  niece.  After  a 
week  in  Paris,  they  started  for  Italy,  Mrs.  Jameson  and 
her  niece  with  them.  They  went  by  way  of  Orleans  and 
Lyons  to  Marseilles,  and  from  there  by  sea  to  Leghorn,  i 
and  so  to  Pisa. 

*  Cf .  the  sonnet  beginning : 

"Beloved,  thou  hast  sent  me  many  flowers," 
No.  xLiv,  in  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese  as  they  now  stand. 


UFE  OF  BROWNING  27 

12.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Browning  stayed  that  winter  in  Pisa, 
and  in  the  following  April  went  to  Florence.  That  summer, 
they  occupied  for  the  first  time  the  rooms  in  the  Casa 
Guidi  which  in  May  of  the  year  1848  became  their  head- 
quarters, and  with  which  their  married  life  from  that 
time  on  is  associated.  They  were  away  much  of  the  time : 
One  summer  they  visited  the  towns  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
upper  east  coast  of  Italy,  three  sunmaers  they  were  at  the 
Baths  of  Lucca,  four  summers  they  were  in  England,  one 
summer  in  France,  two  summers  near  Siena,  two  winters 
in  Paris,  four  winters  in  Rome.  But  they  always  kept 
the  apartments  in  the  Casa  Guidi.  It  was  here  that  their 
boy  was  born  Mch.  9,  1849. 

13.  Mrs.  Browning's  writings  were  very  successful  and 
brought  in  some  income.  But  Robert  Browning's  works 
had  no  such  experience.  All  his  works  before  his  marriage, 
except  Strafford,  had  been  published  at  the  expense  of  his 
relatives:  His  aunt,  as  we  have  noted,  furnished  the 
money  for  the  publication  of  Pauline;  his  father  paid  for 
the  publication  of  Paracelsus,  Sordello,  and  all  the  eight 
numbers  of  the  Bells  and  Pomegranates.  All  these  books 
had  met  with  only  a  small  sale  at  best.  He  had  to  borrow 
£100  from  his  father  at  the  time  of  his  marriage  and  jour- 
ney with  his  wife  to  Italy.  The  chief  work  of  his  married 
life,  the  two  volumes  of  Men  and  Women,  fared  somewhat 
better,  but  even  these  volumes  did  not  meet  anything 
like  the  recognition  they  deserved.  Fortunately  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Browning  were  not  dependent  on  an  income 
from  their  writings.  Mrs.  Browning  had  inherited  quite 
an  amount  by  the  will  of  her  uncle  Samuel  Barrett,  and, 
at  the  time  of  her  marriage,  had  £8000  so  invested  that 
it  yielded  £300  a  year.  Ever  after  the  birth  of  their  son, 
her  cousin  John  Kenyon  had  allowed  them  £100  a  year 


28  BROWNING  STUDIES 

(against  Browning's  wishes),  and  when  Mr.  Kenyon  died 
in  1856,  he  left  them  £11000.  So  they  were  able  to  follow 
their  ideals,  without  the  bread  and  butter  question  staring 
them  constantly  in  the  face. 

14.  Mrs.  Browning's  health,  for  years  after  the  marriage, 
was  much  improved.  Of  course,  it  is  very  hazardous  to 
marry  a  sick  woman,  an  invalid.  But  in  this  case,  the 
event  justified  the  marriage.  Browning's  love  for  her 
gave  her  a  new  lease  of  life,  lifted  her  out  of  her  melan- 
choly and  morbid  state,  and  thrilled  her  whole  nature. 
Within  the  next  few  years  she  was  better  than  she  had 
ever  hoped  to  be.  Her  son  was  strong  and  well,  and  be- 
came a  successful  painter.  He  died  at  Asolo,  July  8,  191 2. 
The  fact  that  it  turned  out  well  in  Browning's  case  does 
not  argue  in  favor  of  marrying  a  sick  woman.  But  the 
fact  remains  that  in  this  one  instance,  anyway,  the  marriage 
was  an  immeasurable  blessing  both  to  her  and  to  him. 

But  as  years  went  on,  her  health  declined  again,  with 
an  occasional  severe  attack  which  left  her  weaker.  Grad- 
ually travel  ahd  social  life  to  which  she  had  grown  ac- 
customed became  harder  for  her.  Rome  was  chosen  for 
winter  quarters  on  account  of  its  milder  climate.  Theij, 
came  her  acute  and  dangerous  illness  in  Rome  in  the  spring 
of  1 86 1,  the  slow  and  anxious  journey  to  Florence,  and 
her  last  illness  in  the  Casa  Guidi.  But  even  in  the  last 
days  she  was  not  confined  to  her  room  except  on  June  28. 
And  even  on  the  evening  of  that  day,  when  Miss  Isa  Blag- 
den  left  her,  Mrs.  Browning  said  she  was  better.  Her 
sleep  that  night  was  broken  and  troubled.  About  day- 
break, she  awoke  and  told  her  husband  that  she  thought 
she  felt  stronger.  Not  knowing  that  it  was  the  end,  she 
expressed  her  love  for  him  in  words  that  always  afterward 
lived  in  his  memory.    He  supported  her  in  his  arms,  and 


LIFE  OF  BROWNING  29 

she  grew  drowsy  and  her  head  fell  forward,  and  she  was 
dead.     It  was  June  29,  1861. 

The  15  years  of  their  married  life  had  been  exceedingly 
beautiful,  —  a  unity  of  soul  which  is  seldom  found  so 
nearly  complete  in  this  world.  There  will  probably  be, 
in  the  final  reckoning,  very  few  periods  of  15  years  in  any 
human  lives  so  nearly  a  perfect  union  as  the  married  life 
of  Robert  Browning  and  Elizabeth  Barrett. 

15.  With  her  death  Browning  was  overwhelmed.  He 
could  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  adjust  his  mind  to 
life  without  her.  He  left  Florence  that  summer  and  never 
returned.  When  he  came  to  London,  he  could  not  at  first 
think  of  keeping  house,  but  finally  took  the  house  in  War- 
wick Crescent  where  he  lived  for  the  next  25  years.  He 
made  arrangements  for  the  education  of  his  son.  He 
would  not  surrender  to  despair,  but  his  desolation  was 
extreme,  his  life  "as  grey  as  the  winter  sky  of  London." 
He  shrank  from  society;  it  was  a  year  before  he  could 
accept  invitations  as  he  had  done  before.  By  and  by, 
he  took  what  he  calls  in  a  letter  "a  great  read  at  Euripides." 
He  lived  in  London,  but  went  nearly  every  summer  to 
France.  His  father  died  in  1866,  and  from  that  time  on 
Browning  and  his  sister  lived  together  and  travelled  to- 
gether. Most  of  the  autumns  from  1878  on  were  spent 
in  Venice.  Four  autumns  Browning  and  his  sister  lodged 
at  a  quiet  inn,  the  Albergo  delF  Universo.  But  after  that 
they  were  always  guests  of  Mrs.  Arthur  Bronson. 

16.  Beginning  early  after  Mrs.  Browning's  death  and 
developing  with  increasing  force,  was  his  realization  that 
the  power  of  her  spirit  was  upon  him  still  and  that  she 
might  ''hearken  from  the  realms  of  help."  ^    And  so  he 

^  Browning,  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  Invocation,  p.  666, 1.  77 : 
"  Hail  then,  and  hearken  from  the  reahns  of  help !" 


30  BROWNING  STUDIES 

began  to  weave  for  her  that  crown  of  his  maturest  and 
best  work,  —  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  his  great  Greek 
pieces  (Balaustion's  Adventure  and  Aristophanes'  Apology, 
with  his  translation  of  a  tragedy  of  Euripides  contained 
in  each,  and  then  his  translation  of  The  Agamemnon  of 
Mschylus)  —  and,  beside  these,  a  wealth  of  short  poems, 
from  Prospice}  written  the  autumn  after  her  death,  to  the 
words,2 

"I  shall  pray^  'Fugitive  as  precious  — 

Minutes  which  passed,  —  return,  remain ! 
Let  earth's  old  life  once  more  enmesh  us, 
You  with  old  pleasure,  me  —  old  pain, 
So  we  but  meet  nor  part  again  ! ' " 

in  the  volume  published  on  the  day  he  died.  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing's face  looks  out  through  most  of  the  work  he  did  through- 
out those  28  years  from  1861  to  his  death.  At  least,  if 
her  face  does  not  look  out,  you  know  that  it  is  there,  — 
that  there  is  some  benediction  anciently  her  smile.^ 

17.  All  Browning's  early  writings  were  poorly  received, 
but  this  never  shook  his  devotion  to  his  ideals.  It  took 
him  more  than  30  years  to  win  any  considerable  amount 
of  appreciation,^  but  he  kept  on  just  the  same.  But  as 
the  last  third  of  his  life  drew  on,  there  began  to  be  an 
awakening  to  the  fact  that  a  man  of  colossal  intellect  and 
power  had  been  at  work  all  these  years.  Then  came 
Browning's  election  as  Honorary  Fellow  of  Balliol  College 
and  his  degrees  from  Oxford,  Cambridge,  and  Edinburgh, 
and  his  nomination  for  the  office  of  Lord  Rector  of  St. 
Andrews  and  then  of  Glasgow  University.    We  cannot 

1  Pp.  516,  517.  2  p   J295,  11.  51-55,  Speculative,  in  Asolando. 

'  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  Invocation,  p.  667, 1.  4 : 

"Some  benediction  anciently  thy  smile." 
*  Of  course,  here  and  there  one  liked  Browning's  writings  and  recognized 
bis  greatness ;  but  such  were  few  for  more  than  30  years. 


LIFE  OF  BROWNING  3 1 

cease  to  be  glad  that  he  lived  long  enough  to  see  some 
fruit  of  his  toil,  to  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul  and  be,  in 
some  measure,  satisfied. 

18.  Mrs.  Bronson  had  a  house,  built  partly  on  the  very 
wall  of  Asolo,  to  which  she  went  to  escape  the  hot  weather 
in  Venice.  To  Asolo,  then,  on  her  urgent  invitation,  came 
Robert  Browning  and  his  sister  late  in  the  summer  of  1889, 
on  their  way  to  Venice.  Here  he  completed  his  last  volume, 
which  he  named  Asolando}  Some  of  the  poems  were 
written  here.^  Then,  going  to  Venice  the  first  of  Novem- 
ber, Browning  had  time  to  read  the  proofs  of  the  book, 
and  to  enjoy  his  son's  home  and  the  city  to  which  he  had 
so  often  come.  There  seems  to  be  a  singular  sense  of 
completeness  about  it  all,  as  he  drew  near  the  end.  His 
last  illness  was  brief,  hardly  more  than  two  weeks.  After 
an  intense  and  active  life  of  something  more  than  77  years, 
he  died  at  ten  o'clock  on  Thursday  evening,  Dec.  12,  1889, 
—  the  very  day  on  which  his  last  volume  was  pubHshed 
in  London.  The  last  day  of  December  that  year  saw  his 
body  laid  in  the  earth  under  the  floor  of  Westminster  Abbey. 

1  The  title  of  the  volume  Browning  explains  in  the  graceful  dedication  to 
Mrs.  Arthur  Bronson,  dated  Asolo,  October  15,  1889.  He  recalls  that 
Pietro  Bembo  (made  a  cardinal  in  1539),  who  had  been  much  in  Asolo  in 
the  earlier  part  of  his  life,  is  said  to  have  invented  a  verb,  playing  upon 
the  name  of  the  town  or  seeking  to  find  a  derivation  for  it :  A  solar  e  —  "to 
disport  in  the  open  air,  amuse  one's  self  at  random."  On  the  basis  of  such  a 
verb,  the  name  of  the  town,  Asolo,  (ist  pers.,  sing.,  indie.)  would  mean  "I 
disport,  I  amuse  myself,"  and  the  title  Asolando  would  be  the  gerund,  in 
the  dative,  "for  disporting,  for  amusing  one's  self,"  or  more  likely  the  abla- 
tive, "by  disporting,"  i.e.  "by  way  of  disporting"  or  "by  way  of  amusing 
one's  self  at  random."  The  sub-title  Fancies  and  Facts  indicates  the  same 
vein. 

^  See  the  first  sentence  in  his  dedication  to  Mrs.  Bronson.  A  tablet, 
placed  on  the  house  by  the  city  of  Asolo,  commemorates  Browning's  work  on 
Asolando  there:  "In  questa  casa  abito  Roberto  Browning  summo  poeta 
inglese,  vi  scrisse  Asolando,  1889." 


32  BROWNING  STUDIES 

Better  than  any  other  critic  Stopford  Brooke  has  summed 
up  ^  the  life  of  Browning.  Only  some  sentences  can  be 
quoted  here : 

"  No  fear,  no  vanity,  no  complaint  of  the  world,  no  anger  at  criti- 
cism, no  villain  fancies  disturbed  his  soul.  No  laziness,  no 
feebleness  in  effort  injured  his  work ; ,  no  desire  for  money, 
no  faltering  of  aspiration,  no  pandering  of  his  gift  and  genius  to 
please  the  world,  no  surrender  of  art  for  the  sake  of  fame  or  filthy 
lucre,  no  falseness  to  his  ideal,  no  base  pessimism,  no  slavery  to 
science,  yet  no  boastful  ignorance  of  its  good,  no  morbid  natural- 
ism, no  despair  of  man,  no  abandonment  of  the  great  ideas  or 
disbeUef  in  their  mastery,  no  enfeebiement  of  reason,  no  lack 
of  joy  and  healthy  vigor  and  keen  inquiry  and  passionate  inter- 
est in  humanity.  .  .  .  Creative  and  therefore  joyful,  receptive 
and  therefore  thoughtful,  at  one  with  humanity  and  therefore 
loving;  aspiring  to  God  and  believing  in  God,  and  therefore 
steeped  to  the  lips  in  radiant  hope ;  at  one  with  the  past,  pas- 
sionate with  the  present,  and  possessing  by  faith  an  endless 
and  glorious  future  —  this  was  a  life  lived  on  the  top  of  the 
wave  and  moving  with  its  motion  from  youth  to  manhood, 
from  manhood  to  old  age.  .  .  .  There  is  no  need  to  mourn  for 
his  departure.  Nothing  feeble  has  been  done,  nothing  which 
lowers  the  note  of  his  life,  nothing  we  can  regret  as  less  than 
his  native  strength.  .  .  .  The  sea  and  sky  and  mountain 
glory  of  the  city  he  loved  so  well  encompassed  him  with  her 
beauty;  and  their  soft  graciousness,  their  temperate  power 
of  joy  and  Hfe  made  his  departure  peaceful.  His  death  added 
a  new  fairness  to  his  life.  Mankind  is  fortunate  to  have  so 
noble  a  memory,  so  full  and  excellent  a  work,  to  rest  upon  and 
love." 

IV.  Browning's  Published  Works 

In  order  to  study  Browning  intelHgently,  we  shall  need 
to  bear  in  mind  his  chief  works  as  they  were  published : 
I.    1833,  Pauline,  his  first  published  work,  —  of  which 

1  Stopford  A.  Brooke,  in  his  book  The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning^  last  two 
pages. 

I 


BROWNING'S  WORKS  33 

we  have  already  spoken  sufficiently  in  our  discussion  of 
Browning's  life. 

2.  1835,  Paracelsus,  a  thorough  and  wonderful  philo- 
sophical discussion  for  a  boy  of  23,  on  the  question :  What 
is  the  chief  end  of  life  —  Knowledge  or  Love  ? 

3.  1837,  Strafford,  a  tragedy  written  at  the  request  of 
the  great  actor  William  C.  Macready,  and  first  played 
by  him  at  Covent  Garden  Theatre,  May  i,  1837. 

4.  1840,  Sordello,  a  tangled  psychological  study  of  the 
development  of  a  poet's  soul. 

5.  1841-46,  Bells  and  Pomegranates,  eight  pamphlets. 
The  reason  why  they  came  into  existence  in  this  shape  is 
interesting :  Several  pieces  of  Browning's  work  —  Pippa 
Passes,  King  Victor  and  King  Charles,  The  Return  of  the 
Druses  —  lay  in  his  desk.  No  publisher  would  take  them. 
Finally  he  succeeded  in  arranging  with  Edward  Moxon 
to  bring  them  out  in  pamphlet  form,  very  poor  type,  very 
cheap  paper,  each  issue  to  have  only  16  pages,  two  columns 
to  the  page.  This  series  Browning  whimsically  called 
Bells  and  Pomegranates  (catching  the  words  from  Ex.  28 : 
33,  34;  cf.  39 :  24-26).  And  in  this  pitiful  shape  appeared 
the  best  work  of  the  first  half  of  Browning's  life.  The 
eight  issues  of  Bells  and  Pomegranates  contained  as  follows : 

No.  I,  1841,  Pippa  Passes. 

No.  2,  1842,  King  Victor  and  King  Charles. 

No.  3,  1842,  Dramatic  Lyrics. 

No.  4,  1843,  ^^^  Return  of  the  Druses. 

No.  5,  1843,  ^  ^^^^  ^^  l^^  ^Scutcheon. 

No.  6,  1844,  Colomhe's  Birthday. 

No.  7,  1845,  Dramatic  Romances  and  Lyrics. 

No.  8,  1846,  Luria  and  A  SouVs  Tragedy. 

6.  An  edition  of  Browning's  collected  works,  so  far, 
was  published  in  1849,  i^  two  volumes. 


34  BROWNING  STUDIES 

7.  1850,  Christmas-Eve  and  Easter-Day,  two  religious 
poems. 

8.  1855,  Men  and  Women,  2  vols.,  51  short  poems  in  all, 
some  of  Browning's  best. 

9.  Browning's  Poetical  Works  were  published  in  three 
vols,  in  1863. 

10.  1864,  Dramatis  Personce,  short  poems. 

11.  Browning's  collected  Works  were  published  in  six 
vols,  in  1868. 

12.  1868-69,  ^^^  Ring  and  the  Book,  4  vols.,  one  month 
apart,  Nov.  and  Dec.  1868,  Jan.  and  Feb.  1869. 

13.  1 87 1,  Balaustion's  Adventure,  which  has  in  it  a 
translation  of  the  Alkestis  of  Euripides. 

14.  1871,  Prince  Hohenstiel-Schwangau,  sl  monologue 
in  the  month  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon  III,  discussing  his 
ambitions  and  his  political  and  social  philosophy. 

15.  1872,  Fifine  at  the  Fair,  a  much  more  serious  and 
far-reaching  analysis  of  some  phases  of  human  nature 
than  some  Browning  critics  have  realized. 

16.  1873,  ^^^  Cotton  Night-Cap  Country,  a  psycho- 
logical study  founded  on  facts,  i.e.  on  true  incidents 
of  a  case  of  dissipation  and  immorality  (''The  Mellerio 
story").  The  real  names  were  used  at  first,  but,  on 
legal  advice,  were  changed  to  fictitious  names  before 
publication. 

17.  1875,  Aristophanes^  Apology,  containing  a  translation 
of  the  Eerakles  of  Euripides. 

18.  1875,  The  Inn  Album,  a  study  of  the  mind  of  a 
woman  who  still  loved  the  man  who  wrecked  her  Hfe. 

19.  1876,  Pacchiarotto,  and  How  he  Worked  in  Distemper, 
with  other  short  poems.  Pacchiarotto  is  an  outburst  of 
Browning  against  his  critics. 

20.  1877,  a  translation  of  The  Agamemnon  of  Mschylus. 


BROWNING'S  WORKS  35 

'21.  1878,  La  Saisiaz,  sl  discussion  of  Immortality, 
apropos  of  the  sudden  death  of  their  friend  Miss  Anne 
Egerton  Smith  who  was  spending  the  autumn  with  Brown- 
ing and  his  sister  at  a  villa  named  La  Saisiaz,  four  or  five 
miles  southwest  of  Geneva,  —  she  died  of  heart  disease 
on  the  morning  of  Sept.  14,  1877. 

In  the  same  volume,  The  Two  Poets  of  Croisic,  an  amusing 
account,  based  on  historical  facts,  of  how  even  the  most 
astute  hterary  critics  have  been  fooled. 

22.  1879,  Dramatic  Idyls,  First  Series,  short  poems. 

23.  1880,  Dramatic  Idyls,  Second  Series. 

24.  1883,  Jocoseria,  short  poems  more  or  less  semi- 
serious  and  jesting. 

25.  1884,  FerishtaKs  Fancies,  bits  of  philosophy,  with 
lyrics  strung  between  them,  some  being  of  great  beauty 
and  intensity. 

26.  1887,  Parleyings  with  Certain  People  of  Importance 
in  their  Day.  They  are  dead,  but  Browning  calls  them 
up  and  talks  with  them. 

27.  1889,  (dated  1890  on  title  page,  but  published 
Dec,  1889),  Asolando,  short  poems,  some  of  them  in 
Browning's  very  best  vein.  This  volume  was  published 
on  the  day  he  died,  Dec.  12,  1889. 

28.  The  Poetical  Works  of  Robert  Browning,  in  16  vols., 
appeared  in  1888-89.  Browning  began  making  a  revision 
of  his  poems  in  the  spring  of  1888.  The  edition  came  out 
in  monthly  volumes,  completed  July,  1889.  The  poems 
in  his  Asolando  were  later  included  in  the  i6th  vol.  of  this 
set,  making  the  whole  complete.  This  is  also  spoken  of 
as  a  17-volume  edition,  because  of  having  later,  in  addition 
to  Browning's  Works,  a  17th  volume  containing  historical 
notes.  In  1894,  the  17  volumes  were  issued  also  bound 
in  9  volumes. 


36  BROWNING  STUDIES 

It  is  a  vast  amount  Browning  has  published,  naturally 
falling  into  two  groups  of  works :  (i)  those  written  before 
Mrs.  Browning's  death,  and  (2)  those  written  after  her 
death,  —  each  with  well  marked  characteristics.  Emerson 
insists  that  a  man's  real  biography  is  internal,  the  story 
of  the  development  and  unfolding  of  his  own  mind,  and 
that  all  outward  deeds  are  secondary.  This  is  certainly 
true.  And  you  will  find  the  real  biography  of  Robert 
Browning  in  his  poems.  He  speaks  there  by  many  voices, 
but  you  reaUze  after  all  that  he  has  written  down  his  own 
soul.  These  writings,  extending  over  a  space  of  almost 
60  years,  are  one  of  the  richest  legacies  the  nineteenth 
century  has  left  to  the  centuries  that  come  after. 

V.   Some  of  the  Chief  Characteristics  of  Browning's 
Personality  ^--  . 

Browning  was  a  little  below  medium  height,  strongly 
and  compactly  built,  and  walked  with  rapid  step.  He 
had  bright  gray  eyes  and  a  ruddy  complexion.  He  talked 
easily  and  with  vim  and  clearness. 

I  look  forward  to  a  time  when  Browning  will  come  into 
his  own,  when  he  will  be  the  favorite  poet  with  men  of 
the  world,  —  business  men,  engineers,  statesmen  —  men 
of  large  affairs.  He,  of  all  the  poets  of  the  English  language, 
is  most  of  the  stripe  of  the  man  who  is  plunged  in  the 
world's  work.  Not  one  of  his  portraits  looks  like  the  usual 
notion  of  a  poet.  From  these  portraits,  you  might  judge 
him  to  be  a  prosperous  banker,  a  vigorous  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  a  minister  of  his  government  to  another 
country,  the  president  of  a  university,  a  leading  physician, 
or  even  the  most  enthusiastic  member  of  a  golf-club.  But 
poet?  No.  Where  is  the  dreamy  eye,  the  shrinking  from 
the  turmoil  of  the  world,  the  face  which  tells  that  the 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  BROWNING  37 

possessor  is  devoid  of  common  sense?  This  face  belongs 
to  a  keen,  logical,  genial,  practical  man  of  the  world. 

1 .  The  first  and  most  striking  characteristic  ^  of  Robert 
Browning  is  his_^ full-blooded  enjoymen^  of  the  crush  and 
struggle  of  humanity.  He  could  enjoy,  as  keenly  as  Words- 
worth, the  solitudei  of  the  woods  and  the  sea.  But  he 
came  back  always  with  renewed  zest  for,  and  new  interest 
in,  the  tangled  struggle  and  tumult  of  cities,  factories, 
business,  politics,  and  the  crowd.  It  was  not  to  him  a 
meaningless  scramble,  but  he  saw  in  it  the  working  of  great 
principles  of  good  and  evil,  elemental  laws  which  were  to 
be  discovered  by  their  results.  He  saw  in  all  the  strife, 
in  all  the  intrigue,  in  all  the  victory  and  defeat,  in  all  the 
sin  and  shame,  —  he  saw  the  furnace  in  which  human 
character  is  made.  Facing  the  furnace,  or  rather  standing 
in  the  furnace  himself,  he  declare^ :  ^ 

"This  world's  no  blot  for  «s 
Nor  blank ;  it  means  intensely  and  means  good : 
To  find  its  meaning  is  my  meat  an4  drink." 

The  struggle  and  tumult  of  the  world,  its  suffering  and  its 
sin,  instead  of  repelling  him,  attracted  him,  and  he  rejoiced 
in  it  "as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race,"  or  as  in  the  old  iron 
days  a  soldier  exulted  in  the  hour  of  battle,  though  it  was 
"with  confused  noise  and  garments  rolled  in  blood." 

2.  This  resulted  naturally  from  and  was  linked  with 
Browning's  second  great  characteristic,  —  his  universal 
sympathy.  Everything  human  was  full  of  interest  for 
him.     The  more  broken  and  pitiful,  the  more  it  attracted 

*  The  characteristics  here  given  are,  of  course,  drawn  from  Browning's 
actions  and  writings  —  chiefly  from  his  writings  —  not  from  his  face,  as  one 
who  heard  this  lecture  supposed,  because  his  portraits  had  been  mentioned. 
No  wonder  that  this  listener  said :  "  I  can't  see  all  that  in  his  face." 

*  P.  450, 11.  41-43,  Fra  Lippo  Lippi. 


/ 


38  BROWNING  STUDIES 

him.  Himself  a  man  of  stainless  character,  he  never  drew 
back  with  *'I  am  holier  than  thou."  I  know  no  one  who 
mingles  justice  and  mercy  so  well  in  his  attitude  toward 
all  sorts  of  sin  and  shame,  except  Jesus  of  Nazareth  from 
whom  Browning  learned  the  way  to  do  it.  He  shrinks 
never  from  the  high  and  mighty.  They  also  are  but  men. 
To  Browning,  human  personalities  are  what  they  are, 
without  regard  to  outward  seeming,  and  must  stand  only 
on  their  own  intrinsic  worth.  He  lived  for  absolute  values, 
not  compromise  nor  expediency.  And  he  estimates  other 
personalities  by  these  same  absolute  values.  His  sympathy 
is  more  discerning  and  more  universal  than  Shakespeare's ; 
lor  Shakespeare  despised_riie  crowd  of  the  common  j)eQple, 
and  never  touches  them  except  in  ridicule.  Browning 
loved  the  common  people,  the  struggling  masses,  as  well 
as  he  loved  the  great  and  cultured.  A  single  example 
will  suffice :  a  factory-girl  from  the  silk  mills  of  Asolo  by 
her  unconscious  influence  transforms  the  hfe  and  shapes 
the  destiny  of  the  rich  and  mighty,  as  she  passes  singing 
on  her  one  holiday  in  the  year.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  Pippa. 
3.  A  third  prominent  characteristic  is  Browning's  im- 
■  patience  with  mediocrity  and  his  contempt  for  indecision, 
irresolution,  half-hearted  endeavor,  and  fear.  No  one  can 
read  Browning's  poems  without  feeling  his  intense  virility. 
He  is  so  full  of  red  blood  himself  that  the  pale-blooded, 
white-livered,  and  passionless  folks  he  cannot  endure. 
With  him,  the  programme  of  life  is :  decide,  then  act.  He 
is  fond  of  rich  colors  and  extreme  situations.  Porphyria's 
lover  who  strangles  her  with  her  long  string  of  yellow  hair 
that  he  may  keep  her  just  as  she  is,  because  he  loves  her 
so,  would  appeal  to  few  poets  as  he  does  to  the  intense 
mind  of  Robert  Browning.  If  Wordsworth  is  the  poet 
of  the  commonplace  things  of  life,  Browning  is  the  poet 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  BROWNING  39 

of  human  nature  wrought  up  to  its  uttermost.  Browning, 
a  man  of  unfaltering  courage  himself,  wanted  courage  in 
others.  He  wants  Caponsacchi  to  thank  God  for  temp- 
tation.^ How  else  grow  strong,  except  by  resistance  and 
overcoming  ? 

"  Why  comes  temptation  but  for  man  to  meet 
And  master  and  make  crouch  beneath  his  foot  ?  "  * 

Pray  not  only  ^'Lead  us  not  into  temptation"  —  Browning 
does  not  stop  there : 

"Yea,  but,  O  Thou  whose  servants  are  the  bold, 
Lead  such  temptations  by  the  head  and  hair, 
Reluctant  dragons,  up  to  who  dares  fight, 
That  so  he  may  do  battle  and  have  praise ! "  ^ 

Just  like  Robert  Browning  to  look  for  men  so  strong  in 
ideals  and  inner  strength  that  temptations  would  be  afraid 
of  them. 

Ever5rwhere  what  he  wants  is  no  dallying,  but  decision, 
action.  This  has  led  some  purblind  critics  to  imagine 
that  Browning  approved  of  sin,  just  as  some  critics  have 
supposed  that  Jesus  approved  of  dishonesty  because  he 
** commended  the  unjust  steward'^  in  the  parable:^  it 
was  only  the  steward's  long-headedness  and  shrewdness 
which  Jesus  commended,  not  the  acts  by  which  he  showed 
it.  So  Browning  distinguishes  the  quality  of  soul  shown 
in  certain  acts  from  the  moral  quality  of  those  acts  them- 
selves. The  most  familiar  stumbling-stone  is  The  Statue 
and  the  Bust,  in  which  a  man  and  woman  plan  an  elope- 

1  The  Pope,  in  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  p.  854,  11.  51-60.  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson  {'' Virginibus  Puerisque"  and  Other  Papers,  London,  1881,  p.  43; 
Medallion  Edition,  New  York,  1909,  p.  37)  calls  this  "the  noblest  passage 
in  one  of  the  noblest  books  of  this  century,"  —  i.e.  now,  of  course,  the 
century  that  lately  closed. 

'Luke  16:    1-8. 


40  BROWNING  STUDIES 

ment,  an  adulterous  affair,  and  cherish  the  plan  for  years, 
but  never  have  the  courage  to  carry  it  out.  And  Brown- 
ing condemns  them  for  their  failure.  It  is  not  that  he 
approves  their  sinful  scheme,  but  he  feels  that  it  was  a 
thing  to  test  their  mettle  just  as  much  as  a  better  thing 
would.  He  has  stated  this  so  plainly  at  the  end  that  I 
marvel  that  anyone  could  miss  it :  ^ 

"I  hear  you  reproach,  '  But  delay  was  best 

For  their  end  was  a  crime.'  —  Oh,  a  crime  will  do 

As  well,  I  reply,  to  serve  for  a  test, 

As  a  virtue  golden  through  and  through." 
"Let  a  man  contend  to  the  uttermost 

For  his  life's  set  prize,  be  it  what  it  will !" 

This  uncompromising  view  of  human  life  runs  through  all 
Browning's  works.  When  we  once  grasp  it,  we  see  the 
reason  often  for  his  choice  of  subject  and  manner  of  treat- 
ment. The  kind  of  men  Browning  admires  are  men  of 
splendid  intensity  and  the  courage  to  follow  their  con- 
victions, —  Luria,  who  kills  himself  in  stainless  honor 
rather  than  submit  even  to  being  treated  with  suspicion; 
Ivan  Ivanovitch,  who  takes  instantly  into  his  own  hands 
the  execution  of  the  woman  who  has  saved  her  own  Hfe 
by  the  unnatural  act  of  letting  the  wolves  have  her  children ; 
Herakles,  who  meets  all  hardship  and  all  sorrow  with  a 
victorious  smile  and  holds  *'his  life  out  on  his  hand,  for 
any  man  to  take,"  ^ 

"As  up  he  stepped,  pursuing  duty  still 
'Higher  and  harder,'  as  he  laughed  and  said.'* ' 

Browning  feels,  as  keenly  as  any  man  can,  ''  the  old  woe  o' 
the  world''  and  the  pitifulness  of  the  fact  that  ** nothing 
endures,"  that  "nothing  can  be  as  it  has  been  before." 

ip.375,U.  1-4,  17,  i8. 

'  Balaustian's  Adventure,  p.  554, 11.  47,  48 ;  p.  556, 11.  74-76. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  BROWNING  41 

But  he  has  no  idea  that  this  should  paralyze  our  efforts. 
The  unstable  quality  of  life,  its  constant  changefulness, 
over  which  so  many  poets  mourn,  provokes  exultation 
from  Robert  Browning :  ^ 

"Rejoice  that  man  is  hurled 
From  change  to  change  unceasingly, 
His  soul's  wings  never  furled  ! " 

To  Robert  Browning,  the  great  men  of  the  world  are  those 
who  have  sternly  obeyed  God's  stern  command  (so  stern 
that  it  "clangs"),  no  matter  what  the  consequences  and 
no  matter  how  soon  these  men  were  to  be  cut  off,  —  that 
was  not  their  affair  —  the  main  point  is  that  they  were 
in  the  process  of  the  doing,  when  they  were  cut  off.  As 
"the  famous  ones  of  old"  throng  his  imagination,  he  hears 
them  say :  ^ 

"  Each  of  us  heard  clang  God's '  Come ! '  and  each  was  coming." 

4.  A  fourth  very  striking  characteristic  is  Browning's 
kp,p.nn^s!i  pf  rifiqly^is  In  his  examination  of  human  actions, 
in  his  search  for  motives,  he  is  a  real  psychologist  who 
makes  the  technical  psychology  of  the  schools  look  poor 
and  artificial.  His  psychology  is  pulsing  with  life  and 
reckons  all  the  tangled  lines  of  hereditary  tendency,  fresh 
incentive,  fear,  hope,  passion,  which  issue  in  a  single  act. 
Among  all  its  scientific  meri,  the  nineteenth  century  did 
not  produce  a  keener  psychologist  than  Robert  Browning. 
But  because  his  psychological  studies  were  published  in 
the  form  of  live  poetry,  instead  of  dry  scientific  discussions, 
the  scientists  did  not  discover  what  he  had  done  until 
many  years  after  he  had  done  it.     It  is  a  simple  fact  that 

*  See  James  Lee^s  Wife,  VI,  especially  stanzas  xi-xvi  (pp.  489,  490). 
The  three  lines  quoted  are  from  p.  490, 11,  8-10. 
'  Epilogue  to  Ferishtah's  Fancies,  p.  1 240, 1.  38. 


42  BROWNING  STUDIES 

he  preceded  by  20  years  the  psychological  analysis  which 
the  scientists  finally  arrived  at,  and  then  they  discovered 
that  he  had  done  it  better  20  years  before.  One  of  the 
chief  reasons  why  he  was  so  long  in  meeting  with  any 
appreciation  is  that  he  was  20  years  ahead  of  the  scientific 
movement  of  the  century.  We  can  have  very  little  patience 
with  this  writing  of  the  history  of  philosophy  which  reckons 
only  those  works  that  are  written  in  prose  and  labelled 
*' philosophical  dissertations"  and  ignores  the  acuter 
philosophical  studies  of  Goethe,  Shakespeare,  and  many 
others,  simply  because  they  are  written  more  vividly  and 
in  metrical  form.  When  the  history  of  psychology  shall 
some  time  be  really  written,  it  will  have  to  take  into  con- 
sideration, not  only  the  technical  psychology  of  the  uni- 
versities, but  the  work  of  such  men  as  Robert  Browning. 

5.  And  his  comprehensiveness  is  the  fifth  characteristic. 
Involved  in  minute  analysis  as  he  was,  he  never  lost  sight 
of  things  in  the  large,  which  the  scientific  analyst  almost 
always  does.  Browning  kept  clearly  in  mind  the  relation 
of  these  minute  details  to  a  great  whole  —  he  realized  that 
no  smallest  thing  can  be  isolated,  but  rather  is  indissolubly 
Hnkedwith  universal  laws.  And  so  the  sweep  of  Brown- 
ing's philosophy  is  as  deep  as  human  hfe  and  as  wide  as 
the  universe  to  which  our  human  hfe  is  everywhere  related. 
There  is  hardly  a  phase  of  life  but  what  Browning  has 
sooner  or  later  reckoned  with  it  and  its  relations.  There 
is  hardly  a  problem  of  existence  but  what  Browning  has 
struggled  with  it,  either  in  his  own  experience  or  in  imagina- 
tion. For  he  had  that  unusual  power  of  putting  himself 
in  another's  place  and  meeting  the  situation  in  his  imagina- 
tion almost  as  keenly  as  if  it  were  his  own  life.  As  a  great 
thinker  and  as  a  great  philosopher,  Browning  will  hold  a 
first  rank,  when  he  comes  to  be  estimated  as  he  is.    The 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  BROWNING  43 

fact  is  not  strange,  but  a  perfectly  natural  thing,  that, 
when  there  was  no  course  in  Browning  given  in  the  English 
Department  of  Oberlin  College,  President  King  (then  a 
professor  —  it  was  before  he  was  made  President)  gave 
some  study  of  Browning  in  the  Department  of  Philosophy. 
6.   A  sixth  characteristic  is  Browning's  faith.     He  wanted 


it  to  be  said  of  him  that  at  least  he  ''beHeved  in  Soul,  was 
very  sure  of  Qod.''  ^  The  nineteenth  century  produced 
many  great  Christians,  but  Robert  Browning  was  one  of 
the  greatest  Christians  of  them  all.  At  any  rate,  that  is 
what  his  own  writings  show,  whatever  statements  may 
be  made  to  the  contrary. ^  Digging  about  the  roots  and 
questioning  the  fundamentals  of  the  Christian  ReHgion, 
he  beheved  more  and  more  in  its  essence.  A  man  of 
universal  charity  toward  all  forms  of  rehgion,  his  own 
reUgious  faith  as  we  find  it  in  his  poems  is  singularly  simple 
and  beautiful.  The  proposition  made  some  time  ago  by 
the  Rev.  Dr.  John  W.  Bradshaw,^  that  a  course  in  Browning 
should  be  given  in  theological  seminaries,  is  natural  and 
ought  to  be  carried  out.  Show  me  a  theological  writer 
who  will  give  young  men  a  vital  grip  on  real  religion  and 
a  vital  message  for  humanity,  equal  to  that  of  Robert 
Browning. 

7.  And  this  leads  naturally  to  a  seventh  characteristic 
—  Browning's  optimism.  We  hear  much  about  this,  but 
few  realize  how  deep  and  far-reaching  Browning's  optimism 
is.  It  is  not  the  optimism  of  a  child,  who  is  optimistic 
because  he  knows  nothing  of  life,  nor  the  optimism  of  that 
great  class  who  are  optimistic  because  they  are  comfortable 

^  Near  the  end  of  La  Saisiaz,  p.  1 132, 1.  23. 

'  Cf .  discussion  of  Browning's  religious  belief  in  the  last  chapter  of  Griffin 
and  Minchin's  Life  of  Browning,  pp.  294-298. 

'  Dr.  Bradshaw  was  then  Pastor  of  the  First  Congregational  Church  of 
Oberlin.     He  died  in  Peoria,  111.,  Sept.  2, 1912. 


44  BROWNING  STUDIES 

and  prosperous  and  have  a  good  digestion.  Browning's 
is  the  optimism  of  a  man  who  knows  the  worst  there  is 
in  the  world,  has  probed  it  to  the  bottom,  and  feels  to 
the  uttermost  the  cruelty  and  the  tragedy  of  life,  but  who, 
in  spite  of  all  this,  believes  that  God  will  not  be  defeated, 
but  that  good  will  triumph  at  the  last.  It  is  the  optimism 
of  a  man  whose  eyes  are  open,  who  sees  the  disease  and 
sin  and  putrefaction  of  humanity,  but  is  not  blind  to  the 
forces  that  make  for  righteousness,  not  blind  to  the  reality 
of  some  altruism  and  self-sacrifice  already  achieved  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  some  nobility  of  character,  some 
victory  of  the  soul.  And  these  facts,  linked  with  his  faith 
in  the  Infinite  Father,  give  him  the  foundations  for  his 
hope.  Such  a  man's  optimism  may  well  reassure  you  and 
me,  when  we  are  bewildered  and  overwhelmed  by  the  evil 
of  the  world. 

Andrew  Lang  prefixed  to  the  Butcher-Lang  translation 
(1879)  of  Homer's  Odyssey  a  sonnet,  in  which  he  says  that, 

just 

"As  one  who  for  a  weary  space  has  lain 
Lulled  by  the  song  of  Circe  and  her  wine" 

would,  when  he  escaped,  be 

"glad  to  know  the  brine 
Salt  on  his  lips,  and  the  large  air  again,  — " 

''So,"  he  says, 

"gladly  from  the  songs  of  modern  speech 
Men  turn,  and  see  the  stars  and  feel  the  free 
ShriU  wind," 
and 

"Hear  like  ocean  on  a  western  beach 
The  surge  and  thimder  of  the  Odyssey." 

It  has  seemed  to  me  so  strikingly  like  the  way  we  turn  to 
Robert  Browning.    Out  of  the  clamor  of  many  voices 


INFLUENCES  IN  THE  MAKING  OF  BROWNING  45 

crying  "Lo!  here"  and  "Lo!  there,"  out  of  the  pettiness 
and  sentimentalism  of  those  who  are  writing  in  our  day 
for  a  living,  out  of  the  cramping  and  dwarfing  clutch  of 
business,  out  of  the  arrogant  claims  of  science,  out  of  the 
specializing  in  our  universities  which  is  fast  depriving  men 
of  any  liberal  education,  —  out  of  all  that  is  partial  and 
narrow  and  feeble,  we  turn  to  the  greatness  and  serenity 
and  universality  and  victoriousness  of  Robert  Browning's 
soul,  — 

"One  who  never  turned  his  back  but  marched  breast  forward, 
Never  doubted  clouds  would  break, 
Never  dreamed,  though   right  were  worsted,  wrong  would  tri- 
umph, 
Held  we  fall  to  rise,  are  baffled  to  fight  better, 
Sleep  to  wake."  ^ 

This  brings  us  to  the  last  main  head  of  our  present  dis- 
cussion : 
V 
VI.  The  Influences  which  made  Robert  Browning 

WHAT  HE   WAS 

These  influences  are  not  far  to  seek : 

I.  His  heredity.  On  this  we  have  already  dwelt  in 
speaking  of  his  father  and  mother.  He  had  from  his 
parents  a  good  constitution,  and  from  his  father  especially 
an  exuberant  vitaUty.  I  have  grown  more  and  more  to 
realize,  as  I  look  at  the  world,  that  sheer  vitality  is  the 
most  needful  thing,  the  greatest  source  of  efficiency,  — 
indispensable  to  highest  success.  In  a  higher  stage  of 
civilization,  the  first  essential  of  education  will  be  the 
cultivation  of  physical  vitaHty,  and  that  is  a  work  of  more 
than  one  generation.  Browning's  splendid  health  is  what 
made  it  possible  for  him  to  do  the  immense  amount  of 
*  Epilogue  to  Asolando,  p.  131 7, 11.  83-87. 


46  BROWNING  STUDIES 

intellectual  work  which  he  did,  and  it  was  this  same  health 
which  made  life  so  real  to  him.  The  fact  is  that  some 
people  actually  live  more  than  others  do  in  the  same  length 
of  time  —  I  know  of  no  other  way  to  describe  it,  —  they 
have  more  Ufe  in  their  bodies,  life  more  intense  and  of  a 
higher  potential.  Browning  had  that  plus  condition  of 
energy  which,  as  Emerson  teaches,  is  essential  to  power. 
He  was,  however,  of  a  high-strung  nervous  temperament, 
which  led  him  occasionally  into  outbursts  of  anger.  And 
his  intensity  of  feeling  would  have  burned  him  out  in  early 
life,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  constitution  and  vitality 
behind  it.  From  his  father.  Browning  had  also  great 
intellectual  ability  and  the  artistic  instinct.  From  his 
mother,  again,  tenderness,  musical  taste,  reverence,  a 
tendency  to  mysticism,  and  yet  with  this  a  strain  of  the 
German  philosophic  mind.  Such  currents  combining  in 
Robert  Browning  gave  him  a  richly  endowed  personality, 
unusually  versatile  and  comprehensive. 

2.  His  education.  His  was  a  real  education :  educere, 
to  lead  out ;  educate,  to  lead  out,  to  develop,  the  min^  of 
the  man.  The  process  of  his  education  stands  out  in  sharp 
contrast  to  the  dreary  artificial  mechanism  commonly 
employed  and  which  is  too  often  a  system  of  stuffing, 
instead  of  drawing  out  and  developing.  Many  very 
thoughtful  men  have  serious  misgivings  about  college 
education  in  our  day,  —  each  teacher  bestirring  himself 
to  stuff  the  students'  heads,  and  the  students  being  mind- 
ful chiefly  of  the  possibility  of  delivering  some  of  the  same 
material  again  in  examination.  A  college  education  ought 
to  be  of  great  value  to  a  man,  and  will  be,  if  he  gets  from 
it  high  purposes,  an  enlarged  area  of  consciousness,  and  a 
discipline  of  mind  which  will  enable  him  to  master  any 
department  of  life  upon  which  he  may  concentrate  his 


INFLUENCES  IN  THE  MAKING  OF  BROWNING  47 

attention.  But  probably  a  majority  of  the  students 
graduate  from  our  colleges  without  knowing  either  how  to 
study  or  how  to  think.  If  a  man  knows  how  to  study  and 
how  to  think,  he  can  educate  himself.  The  best  the  college 
can  do  for  a  man  is  to  start  him  on  his  self-education. 
And  the  serious  question  is  whether  the  colleges  are  really 
accomplishing  this.  Certain  it  is  that  many  of  the  world's 
greatest  minds  were  self-educated  without  the  college 
experience.  You  will  see  in  Stratford-on-Avon  the  gram- 
mar-school where  William  Shakespeare  went  to  school; 
it  is  still  used.  But  he  never  got  any  further.  His  real 
education  was  given  him  by  himself,  —  a  few  old  history 
books  in  English  translation,  a  lot  of  current  novels,  the 
streets  of  London,  the  audience  at  the  Globe  Theatre, 
and  the  inner  recesses  of  his  own  soul,  —  and  the  wisest 
men  for  300  years  have  been  trying  to  stretch  their  minds 
to  the  largeness  of  Shakespeare's  grasp  of  man's  Kfe  and 
the  universe.  Sir  William  Herschel,  the  great  astronomer, 
had  a  musical  education,  but  instructed  himself  in  mathe- 
matics and  astronomy,  and  taught  himself  to  build  a  tele- 
scope and  discovered  a  new  planet.  Professor  Thomas 
Henry  Huxley,  one  of  the  most  celebrated  biologists  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  had  a  start  in  the  lower  schools 
and  then  in  the  hospitals,  but  chiefly  taught  the  science 
of  biology  to  himself  and  then  taught  it  in  the  universities. 
Herbert  Spencer  never  had  a  college  education  nor  had 
anything  to  do  with  the  colleges ;  yet  it  has  been  claimed 
for  him  that  he  came  nearer  to  covering  the  whole  field  of 
human  knowledge  than  any  man  in  his  day.  So  with  others 
by  the  score.  Similarly  in  Robert  Browning  you  have  a  man 
largely  self-educated  by  books  and  travel,  a  man  whose 
education  makes  the  product  of  our  universities  look 
ignorant.    He  had,  at  most,  less  than  two  terms  in  London 


48  BROWNING  STUDIES 

University.  Yet  he  reads  Greek  and  Latin  at  sight  for 
fun,  speaks  French  and  Italian  and  I  know  not  how  many 
other  languages  besides  English,  and  reads  Hebrew.  He 
is,  by  all  odds,  the  most  widely  educated  man  who  has 
written  English  poetry.  See  his  Greek  pieces,  Balaustion' s 
Adventure  and  Aristophanes^  Apology,  a  perfect  maze  of 
intimate  knowledge  of  the  classics.  See  his  information 
as  to  history,  science,  philosophy,  art,  music,  —  all  mar- 
vellously accurate.  To  read  Robert  Browning  intelligently 
is  a  sort  of  university  education  in  itself.  One  can  hardly 
be  surprised  that  hard-headed  men  of  affairs  have  very 
little  respect  for  the  fact  that  a  young  man  has  completed 
a  college  education,  with  its  separation  from  the  real 
world,  its  artificial  methods,  and  its  refusal,  in  the 
majority  of  departments,  to  see  things  in  the  large. 
Higher  education  has  to  begin  with  the  developing 
of  certain  qualities  of  mind.  And  Socrates  talking  with 
the  young  men  in  the  streets  of  Athens  was,  in  a  sense, 
engaged  in  higher  education.  And  Robert  Browning  on 
his  horse,  or  with  the  fencing  foils,  or  at  his  music, 
or  studying  with  his  tutors,  or  deep  in  the  books  of 
his  father's  Ubrary  or  the  British  Museum,  or  travelling 
on  the  Continent,  was,  all  together,  laying  the  founda- 
tions of  a  better  education  than  any  university  in  the 
world  could  give  him. 

3.  The  power  of  Elizabeth  Barrett,  his  wife.  The  in- 
fluence of  personaHties  is  the  largest  influence  in  our  lives. 
I  need  not  speak  in  detail  of  other  personal  influences  in 
Browning's  life  —  e.g.  Shelley's  which  belongs  to  the 
domain  of  books,  Macready's  which  belongs  to  the  domain 
of  opportunity  —  but  turn  at  once  to  the  supreme  personal 
influence,  that  of  Mrs.  Browning.  In  his  relation  to  her, 
he  had  both  of  the  things  which  add  most  to  human  life, 


INFLUENCES  IN  THE  MAKING  OF  BROWNING 


49 


viz.  love  and  suffering,  (a)  It  is  useless  to  argue  as  to 
why  love  enriches  and  deepens  the  lives  of  men  and  women 
so  much.  The  fact  is  that  it  does.  No  man  need  hope 
ever  to  be  a  great  artist,  a  great  musician,  a  great  poet, 
unless  he  loves  greatly.  Somehow,  that  is  what  stirs  the 
foundations  of  life,  and  opens  the  vistas  of  the  mysteries 
of  the  universe.  It  is  literally  true  that  he  lives  most 
who  loves  most.  Somewhere  in  the  mystery  of  human 
existence,  it  is  probably  a  fact  that  love  and  Hfe  are  one, 
and  make  humanity  kindred  of  the  Infinite,  (b)  And  if 
to  love  be  added  the  bitterness  of  bereavement,  you  have 
the  most  that  can  be  done  for  a  human  personahty.  It  is 
useless  to  ask  why  it  is  that  suffering  so  deepens  our  lives 
and  so  develops  the  soul.  The  fact  is  that  it  does.  As 
long  as  we  are  comfortable  and  content,  there  is  no  hope 
of  our  knowing  much  about  life.  But  when  we  are  trodden 
down  by  the  victorious  feet  of  pain  and  death,  then  we 
begin  to  care  for  something  besides  material  things,  and 
think  of  things  unseen  and  eternal.  Some  portion  of  such 
suffering  must  come  to  everyone,  —  to  some  more  than  to 
others.  And  life  is  never  the  same  again.  There  remains 
nothing  but  to  endure,  to  think  it  through,  and  to  recon- 
struct once  more  our  conception  of  human  life  and  the 
universe. 

The  richest  influence  in  Robert  Browning's  life  was 
Elizabeth  Barrett.  His  deep  reverence  for  all  woman- 
hood became  centred  upon  her.  His  splendid  capacity 
for  loving  became  utterly  devoted  to  his  passionate  love 
for  her.  Fifteen  years  of  such  married  life  gave  him  the 
closest  intellectual  fellowship.  And  the  loss  of  her  height- 
ened and  emphasized  the  power  of  her  life  over  him,  beyond 
what  would  have  been  possible  if  she  had  lived.  No  doubt 
he  idealized  her.    She  was  only  a  frail  woman  in  a  world 


50  BROWNING  STUDIES 

of  mystery,  like  all  humanity,  but  to  him  she  was  the  soul 
of  his  soul.^ 

She  lies  buried  in  thelquiet  cemetery  at  Florence.  He 
lies  under  the  feet  of  the  tourists  and  sightseers  who  throng 
Westminster  Abbey,  —  a  constant  stream  of  the  light, 
the  flippant,  and  the  vain.  So  much  vitality,  such  keen- 
ness for  life,  such  zest  in  living  as  Robert  Browning  had 
—  such  love  and  devotion  as  Elizabeth  Barrett  bore  toward 
him  —  has  it  all  come  to  dust  and  ashes?  Somehow,  it 
is  not  easy  to  think  of  them  as  dead.  If  they  are  dead, 
then  all  the  world  is  an  *' insubstantial  pageant"  and  may 
as  well  dissolve;  for  there  will  be  none  more  fit  for  im- 
mortality than  Robert  Browning  and  Elizabeth  Barrett. 
But  what  if  they  are  not  dead?  What  if  their  passionate 
intensity  of  living  has  its  fulfillment  otherwhere?  What 
if,  as  Robert  Browning  himself  confidently  expected,  they 
have  found 

"the  finite  love 
Blent  and  embalmed  with  the  eternal  life."  * 

*  Prospice,  p.  517, 1.  25  : 

"O  thou  soul  of  my  soul!    I  shall  clasp  thee  again." 
2  The  Pope,  in  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  p.  862, 11. 17, 18. 


II 

INTRODUCTION   (CONTINUED) :    BROWNING 
AS  A  LITERARY  ARTIST 

We  turn  now  to  an  examination  of  the  Literary  Art  of 
Browning. 

I.  Difficulties  in  the  Way  of  Understanding 
Browning 

We  hear  a  great  deal  about  the  difficulties  in  understand- 
ing Browning.  I  am  sure  the  obscurity  of  Browning's 
writing  has  been  greatly  exaggerated,  but  we  may  as  well 
discuss  at  the  beginning  the  real  difficulties  which  the 
reader  of  Browning  at  first  meets.  These  difficulties  arise 
out  of  five  things : 

I.  The  first  difficulty  which  a  reader  of  Browning  meets 
is  the  vast  amount  Browning  has  written  and  its  very  unequal 
quality.  As  we  saw,  in  running  over  the  dates  of  his  pub- 
Hshed  volumes,  he  has  been  very  industrious  from  the 
age  of  20  to  the  age  of  77  and  has  produced  an  immense 
amount.^  The  reader  hardly  knows  where  to  begin  and 
has  no  idea  when  he  will  get  through,  {a)  This  matter 
which  Browning  has  published  has  immense  variety. 
(6)  Its  quality  covers  wide  range,  —  from  the  very  highest 
point  of  poetic  imagination  to  some  of  the  dullest  and 

^  It  is  interesting  to  notice  the  distribution  of  the  matter  produced  —  the 
large  amount  published  in  the  12  or  13  years  preceding  Browning's  marriage, 
the  small  amount  during  his  married  life,  and  the  great  amount  after  Mrs. 
Browning's  death.     Cf.  the  dates  of  the  volimaes  to  see  this. 

SI 


52  BROWNING  STUDIES 

prosiest  matter  ever  strung  out  in  metrical  form,  (c)  There- 
fore, the  fate  of  the  reader  is  often  decided  by  where  he 
begins  on  Browning.  If  I  may  give  an  illustration:  A 
business  man  in  Cincinnati  had  heard  me  say  that  Brown- 
ing was  the  poet  for  men  of  affairs,  and  he  made  up  his 
mind  to  try  Browning.  But  next  time  I  saw  him  he  said : 
*'I  thought  you  said  Browning  was  good  reading.  I 
couldn't  make  much  out  of  it."  I  asked:  *'What  did 
you  read?"  He  answered:  ''That  Red  Cotton  Night-Cap 
Country.^'  ''Well,"  I  said,  "if  I  told  you  there  was  fine 
scenery  in  the  state  of  Colorado,  and  you  began  in  some 
swamp  in  a  corner  of  the  state  and  saw  only  that,  could 
you  say  you  had  given  Colorado  scenery  a  fair  chance?" 
No  doubt,  this  gentleman's  experience  illustrates  that  of 
many,  (d)  Like  so  many  poets  (Wordsworth  is  a  striking 
example).  Browning  would  have  fared  better,  if  he  had 
written  less.  If  he  had  written  less,  or  at  least  had  pub- 
lished less,  and  that  had  been  his  best,  he  would  have 
met  with  more  success.  Browning  is  more  responsible 
than  anyone  else  for  the  feeling  against  him.  He  has  done 
much  to  defeat  himself,  because  he  could  not  form  a  just 
critical  estimate  of  what  he  had  written,  and  so  failed 
to  suppress  a  large  number  of  poems,  good  as  exercises  in 
philosophy  and  composition  but  not  such  as  the  public 
has  patience  to  wrestle  with,  (e)  But  this  has  inevitably 
come  about  from  Browning's  indifference  as  to  whether 
the  public  approved  of  him  or  not.  We  ought  not  to  say 
indifference,  because  he  did  care  and  once  in  a  while  breaks 
out  in  indignation  against  his  treatment  at  the  hands  of 
the  critics.  But  he  was  a  poet  for  poetry's  sake,  and  the 
attitude  of  his  readers  toward  him  was  a  secondary  matter. 
The  public  gave  him  a  cold  shoulder  from  the  start.  He 
went  on  calmly  and  persistently,  and  knowing  that  the 


BROWNING  AS  A   LITERARY  ARTIST 


53 


public  were  giving  no  better  reception  to  his  best  produc- 
tions than  to  his  worst,  he  had  no  standard  of  public 
approval  or  disapproval  to  judge  by,  and  so  published 
everything  which  had  been  born  in  his  own  thoughts  and 
had  gotten  itself  written  down  in  poetic  form.  Meantime, 
he  bore  the  public  no  ill  feeling  and  greets  them  with  the 
jovial  words, 

"Such,  British  Public,  ye  who  like  me  not, 
(God  love  you!) —"1 

and  in  another  place, 

"So,  British  Public,  who  may  like  me  yet, 
(Marry  and  amen !) "  ^ 

But  it  is  a  fact  that  Browning  published  too  much  and  of 
too  unequal  worth.  This  is  a  real  difficulty  for  the  be- 
ginner. 

2.  A  second  difficulty  is  the  colloquial  nature  of  his  writing. 
Browning  is  at  once  more  informal  and  colloquial  in  style 
than  any  of  the  English  poets  of  first  rank.  The  result 
is  that  often  what  we  would  imderstand  without  hesitation 
if  spoken  by  a  friend  we  find  difficult  to  understand  when 
we  see  it  on  the  printed  page,  (a)  With  the  spoken  words, 
the  meaning  is  made  evident  by  emphasis  and  inflection. 
But  in  t3^e,  there  is  no  help  except  in  pimctuation.  Con- 
sequently the  punctuation  of  Browning's  poems  is  a  matter 
of  extreme  difficulty.  There  is  a  good  story  of  one  occasion 
when  Browning  was  calling  on  Thomas  Carlyle.  And 
Carlyle  was  shaving,  or  something  of  the  sort,  and  kept 
his  caller  waiting  a  long  time.  When  at  last  he  came  in 
straightening  his  collar  and  tie,  he  said  in  his  gruff  way : 
''Well,  Browning,  you've  taught  the  English  people  one 

^  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  p.  666, 11.  54,  55.    Notice  the  rest  of  the  sentence. 
2  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  p.  906,  11.  44,  45.    The  rest  of  the  sentence  is 
good  too. 


54  BROWNING  STUDIES 

thing  anyway  —  you Ve  taught  them  the  value  of  punctua- 
tion.'' {b)  The  colloquial  nature  of  Browning's  writing 
results  often  in  the  omission  of  conjunctions.  In  con- 
versation we  say:  "Our  hope  is  we  shall  find  a  boat,"  — 
but  how  to  punctuate  that  little  sentence  when  it  is  set 
up  ?  So  we  take  refuge  in  printing  it  in  the  stilted  form : 
*'Our  hope  is  that  we  shall  find  a  boat."  (c)  More  notice- 
able is  the  fact  that  the  colloquial  style  results  in  the 
omission  of  the  relative  pronoun.  We  say,  "The  man  I 
met  on  the  street  was  John  Smith,"  and  it  goes  all  right. 
But  when  we  write  it,  it  looks  queer  and  we  make  it  read : 
"The  man  whom  I  met  on  the  street."  Browning  didn't 
care  how  it  looked ;  he  wrote  it  down  as  he  would  speak  it. 
Consequently,  relative  pronouns  are  omitted  ruthlessly. 
I  venture  to  estimate  that  a  large  per  cent  of  the  difficulty 
which  one  has  at  first  with  Browning's  sentences  grows 
out  of  the  omission  of  the  relative  pronoun.  There  is 
one  solvent  which  will  make  plain  two- thirds  of  such  cases : 
Inasmuch  as  the  style  is  extremely  colloquial,  read  the 
passage  out  loud,  in  a  natural  conversational  way,  and 
you  will  be  surprised  to  find  that  what  was  thick  as  mud 
on  the  printed  page  is  plain  and  easy  when  conveyed  by 
the  living  voice.  There  is  no  poet  whose  writings  insist 
upon  being  read  out  loud  to  be  understood,  to  such  an 
extent  as  Browning's  do. 

3.  A  third  source  of  difficulty  in  Browning  is  the  frequent 
long  sentences,  of  loose  structure,  with  a  large  number  of 
subordinate  clauses,  sometimes  with  a  considerable  amount 
of  parenthetical  matter,  sometimes  even  with  changes  of 
construction,  —  and  always  with  a  picturesque  accumu- 
lation of  all  sorts  of  punctuation  marks.  Browning  can 
write  marvellous  short  sentences,  and  has  written  a  host 
of  them.    But  he  has  written  also  a  host  of  long  onesj 


BROWNING  AS  A   LITERARY  ARTIST  55 

which  bear  a  striking  resemblance  to  the  old-fashioned 
German  sentence  which  is  now  losing  its  hold  on  German 
authors  and  lecturers.  In  dealing  with  a  long  sentence 
of  Browning's  there  is  no  rule,  except  to  keep  a  level  head, 
bear  in  mind  what  is  the  chief  point  he  is  talking  about, 
and  mark  the  subordinate  relation  of  other  parts  of  the 
sentence.  One  presently  becomes  accustomed  to  Brown- 
ing's long  sentences  and  finds  Httle  difficulty  in  them. 

4.  The  fourth  source  of  difficulty  is  more  serious :  It  is 
Browning's  vast  learning. 

a.  Browning  is  surely  the  most  learned  man  who  ever 
wrote  Enghsh  verse.  That  position  has  been  sometimes 
accorded  to  John  Milton,  but  you  will  find  Browning's 
erudition  greater  than  Milton's.  Browning's  knowledge 
of  the  classics  is  as  wide  and  as  minute  as  Milton's,  and  he 
has  a  vast  knowledge  of  art  and  mediaeval  lore  which 
Milton  lacks.  Browning's  knowledge  is  various  and  curious, 
and  reaches  into  a  large  number  of  subjects  which  Milton 
never  touched.  I  have  no  fears  that  Browning's  right  to 
the  position  as  the  most  learned  English  poet  can  be  chal- 
lenged. 

b.  But  the  trouble  is:  Browning  overestimates  his 
reader's  learning.  He  proceeds  upon  the  assumption  that 
his  reader  is  as  familiar  with  all  this  varied  information 
as  he  himself  is.  Probably  Browning  never  thought  any- 
thing about  it,  but  simply  goes  ahead,  disregards  the 
reader,  and  puts  down  what  is  plain  to  Browning  and 
would  be,  he  supposes,  plain  to  anyone.  But  alas!  we 
are  not  Browning ;  our  education  has  been  in  the  narrow 
channel  of  American  schools  and  colleges,  and  Robert 
Browning  has  the  better  of  us.  Consequently,  what  is  a 
matter  of  course  to  him  has  to  be  dug  out  by  us,  with 
searching. 


56  BROWNING  STUDIES 

c.  This  everyday  familiarity  which  Browning  has  with 
a  wide  range  of  learning  is  the  reason  why  his  allusions 
are  sometimes  so  obscure.  A  few  illustrations  out  of 
hundreds : 

(i)  He  is  very  fond  of  the  Latin  poet  Horace,  —  quotes 
him  and  alludes  to  him  often,  but  is  more  likely  to  call 
him  Flaccus  ^  than  Horace.  Who  of  us,  unless  one  just 
out  of  the  Latin  class,  remembers  that  that  poet's  name 
is  Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus,  or  knows  who  Flaccus  is? 

(2)  An  obscure  artist,  whose  "name  and  fame''  Browning 
himself  says  "none  of  you  know,"  is  spoken  of  as  "the 
imaginative  Sienese  great  in  the  scenic  backgrounds."  ^ 
Fortunately  in  his  second  reference^  to  this  "etcher  of 
those  prints,"  he  gives  the  man's  name,  AdemoUo. 

(3)  The  Summa  Theologies  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  is 
mentioned  familiarly  as  the  "Summa."  ^  That  work  is 
the  standard  of  theology  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
but  who,  except  the  Latin  clergy  and  those  outside  of  that 
communion  who  make  a  special  study  of  theology,  would 
know  what  book  is  meant? 

(4)  Browning  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Count  Guido's 
brother  the  Hne : 

"There's  a  sors,  there's  a  right  Virgilian  dip  !"  ^ 

How  many  who  read  Virgil  in  high  school  or  college  ever 
know  that  it  was  once  a  custom  to  dip  into  Virgil  at  random 
for  guidance,  just  as  some  very  pious  people  nowadays 
open  their  Bible  believing  that  they  will  be  directed  to  the 
verse  that  will  make  plain  to  them  what  to  do  ? 

1  e.g.  p.  803, 1. 13 ;  p.  824, 1.  56 ;  p.  826, 1. 11. 

*  P.  650, 11.  42-48,  especially  11.  46-48. 

3P.  654,  11.  37-40. 

4  e.g.  p.  743, 1.  6s ;  p.  758,  U.  50, 66. 

6?.  731,1.  70. 


BROWNING  AS  A  LITERARY  ARTIST  57 

(5)  Again,  we  read  : 

"AU 
Glories  that  met  upon  the  tragic  stage 
When  the  Third  Poet's  tread  surprised  the  Two." » 

To  whom   does  this  refer?    ''The   Two''   are  ^Eschylus 
and  Sophocles.    "The  Third  Poet"  is  Euripides. 

(6)  A  point  is  made^  of  the  Jewish  scribe's  treatment 
of  the  ineffable  name  ^  of  the  God  of  the  Hebrews,  when 
he  came  to  it  in  his  reading  in  the  synagogue.  Who, 
except  Old  Testament  students,  knows  that  the  scribe 
was  not  allowed  to  pronounce  the  name,  but  substituted 
for  it  another  word  —  Adonai,  Lord? 

And  so  on  in  hundreds  of  cases  with  no  effort  to  make 
the  allusion  clear.  The  illustrations  we  have  chosen  are 
simpler  than  many  others  and  take  less  time  to  explain. 
Browning  often  writes  with  a  perfect  tangle  of  allusions 
to  mythology,  history,  Hterature,  and  science.  We  do 
not  mean  to  imply  that  the  majority  of  such  allusions 
are  obscure,  but  unfortunately,  to  most  of  us,  many  of 
them  are. 

d.  Browning's  knowledge  of  the  history  of  painting 
makes  him  sometimes  write  so  that  hardly  any  but  those 
who  have  been  educated  specially  in  that  line  can  get  the 
full  benefit  of  the  poem,  e.g.  Old  Pictures  in  Florence. 
One  must  have  something  of  Browning's  own  artistic 
instinct  to  appreciate  fully  such  interpretations  of  artists' 
struggles  and  ideals  as  he  has  given  in  Pictor  Ignotus, 

1  P.  860, 11.  65-67. 

'^P-7S5,l.83-p.756,1.9. 

3  The  consonants  of  the  name  are  known  —  JHVH,  or  YHWH,  according 
to  what  scheme  of  transliteration  you  adopt,  —  pronounced  probably 
Yahweh,  certainly  not  Jehovah,  which  is  a  word  no  ancient  Hebrew  ever 
heard  of ;  that  word  was  invented  about  the  time  of  the  Protestant  Reforma- 
tion in  the  i6th  century  a.d. 


58  BROWNING  STUDIES 

Fra  Lippo  Lip  pi,  and  Andrea  del  Sarto,  or  to  realize  how 
fine  a  thing  is  a  little  poem  like  that  one  called  A  Face. 

e.  Browning  is  so  thoroughly  at  home  in  music  that 
one  needs  a  course  in  that  subject  to  comprehend  fully 
his  frequent  references  to  it  ^  and  similes  drawn  from  it, 
or  to  get  the  full  force  of  such  poems  as  A  Toccata  of  Ga- 
luppi's,  Master  Hughes  of  Saxe-Gotha,  AM  Vogler,  or  his 
parleying  With  Charles  Avison,  the  great  organist. 

/.  Browning's  knowledge  of  so  many  languages  creates 
a  difficulty  for  us  who  have  so  few  languages  at  command. 
It  is  not  that  Browning  likes  to  parade  them,  but  he  very 
naturally  ffings  in  phrases  from  other  languages  familiar 
to  him,  especially  if  they  give  atmosphere  and  local  color. 
So  the  reader  of  Browning  must  be  prepared  for  Greek  — 
we  need  Greek  even  in  reading  his  translations  from  Greek 
into  English,  they  keep  the  Greek  idiom  so  much  —  Latin 
in  abundance,  plenty  of  French  of  course,  some  German 
(not  many  German  words  used),  and  in  all  poems  laid  in 
Italy  a  great  number  of  Italian  expressions.  Browning 
is  fond  of  Hebrew  and  Aramaic,  and  in  two  poems.  The 
Melon-Seller  and  Two  Camels,  he  has  had  the  audacity  to 
put  the  Hebrew  expressions  in  the  Hebrew  characters. ^ 
Usually  a  writer,  if  he  quotes  Hebrew  words  for  the 
general  reader,  transliterates  into  the  Roman  alphabet ;  so 
few,  except  those  who  study  the  Old  Testament  in  the 
original,  or  read  rabbinic  writings,  or  are  familiar  with 
Yiddish,  can  be  supposed  to  read  the  Hebrew  characters. 

*  e.g.  in  Fifine  at  the  Fair,  p.  944, 11. 19-24. 

'P.  1219,  11.  2,  3;  p.  1229,  1.  28,  —  see  also  the  Hebrew  word  in  1.  34. 
Cf.  Browning's  note  in  connection  with  another  poem,  p.  1214,  where  he 
quotes  the  title  of  a  rabbinic  treatise  and  also  a  proverb,  both  in  Hebrew 
letters.  Browning  writes  only  the  consonants,  which  is  the  more  general 
usage.  The  vowel-points  when  written  are  placed  under  the  consonants. 
Hebrew  reads  from  right  to  left. 


BROWNING  AS  A   LITERARY  ARTIST  59 

g.  It  is  Browning's  wide  and  varied  learning  and  his 
great  number  of  interests  that  makes  his  style  diffuse. 
Browning  lacks  critical  judgment.  He  does  not  know 
how  to  reject.  His  mind  is  so  well  stored  that,  when  he 
starts  to  write,  his  head  is  full  of  similes,  metaphors,  analo- 
gies, associations,  suggested  trains  of  thought.  All  of 
these  are  more  or  less  related  to  the  subject  in  hand,  and 
a  good  critical  judgment  would  dictate  which  should  be 
kept  and  which  rejected.  But  as  they  crowd  upon  Brown- 
ing, he  puts  them  all  down  on  paper.  The  result  is  often 
distracting  and  confusing.  He  would  have  gained  much 
if  he  had  left  out  much.  The  poems  are  often  too  long, 
twice  as  long  as  need  be  —  twice  as  long  as  they  would 
be,  if  he  had  left  out  the  more  irrelevant  parts.  Browning 
himself  does  not  lose  the  connection  of  thought,  but  the 
reader  often  does.  Often  one  might  drop  out  a  page,  two 
pages,  three  pages,  —  and  the  next  line  joins  right  on 
and  goes  on  just  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  It  was 
only  one  of  those  little  excursions  of  Browning's  into  a 
field  which  was  suggested  at  that  point  by  something  he 
was  saying.  Browning  is  constantly  under  the  tempta- 
tion to  wander  off  into  philosophizing  —  excellent  philos- 
ophizing it  often  is,  but  aside  from  his  story.  He  enjoys 
searching  out  motives  and  seeing  how  small  acts  are  re- 
lated to  the  universe.  He  has  great  intellectual  keenness 
in  doing  this.  But  the  story  has  to  wait,  and  the  general 
style  of  the  whole  is  often  made  too  discursive.  It  is  true 
that,  as  one  grows  familiar  with  Browning's  poems,  this 
easy  meandering  style  grows  to  have  a  certain  pleasure 
in  it,  but  it  is  often  confusing  for  the  reader  at  first. 

5.  A  fifth  source  of  difficulty  is  the  monologue  form  in 
which  so  many  of  the  poems  are  cast.  It  is  true  that 
Browning  has  narratives  told  in  the  third  person,  also  that 


6o  BROWNING  STUDIES 

he  has  a  large  amount  written  in  dialogue  form.  But  all 
his  best  poems  are  in  monologue,  i.e.  he  speaks  through 
the  mouth  of  the  man  or  woman  whose  deeds  or  thoughts 
are  being  told  and  the  narrative  is,  therefore,  in  the  first 
person.     I  remember  that  this  seemed  queer  to  me  at  first, 

—  so  many  voices  telling,  in  their  own  person,  their  ad- 
ventures and  their  thoughts.  Yet,  as  soon  as  you  get 
accustomed  to  it,  this  form  of  presentation  does  not  even 
attract  your  attention.  The  narrative  in  the  first  person 
is  far  more  vivid  than  any  in  the  third  person  can  be. 
Browning  is  not  a  successful  dramatist,  but  he  is  the  most 
successful  writer  of  monologues.  What  Shakespeare  has 
done  for  the  drama  Browning  has  done  for  the  monologue, 

—  has  brought  it  to  the  highest  point  it  has  reached  in 
English  Literature. 

^^•"  The  difficulties  in  reading  Browning,  though  usually 
exaggerated,  are  real:  The  vast  amount  and  unequal 
quality  of  Browning's  work,  the  colloquial  nature  of  his 
style,  the  frequent  long  and  involved  sentences,  his  own 
great  learning  and  overestimate  of  the  reader's  learning,  and 
the  monologue  form  in  which  many  of  the  poems  are  cast. 

II.  Excellences  in  Browning  as  a  Literary  ArjTist 

I  have  grown  more  and  more  doubtful  about  all  the 
statements  usually  made  about  Browning's  literary  ability. 
Nothing  is  more  full  of  superstitions  than  the  world  of 
literary  criticism.  Some  man  succeeds  in  getting  before 
the  pubHc  a  number  of  statements  in  regard  to  an*  author 
and  these  become  accepted,  and  then  are  repeated  ad 
infinitum  by  those  who  come  after,  because  it  is  easier 
to  do  that  than  to  read  the  author  and  see  for  one's  self. 
Thus  there  become  settled  literary  superstitions,  —  that 
such  and  such  an  author  has  such  and  such  failings  and 


BROWNING  AS  A  UTERARY  ARTIST  6l 

only  such  and  such  points  in  his  favor.  It  is  the  old  trick 
of  the  average  critic  —  he  has  not  read  the  book.  Some- 
times when  a  man  looks  for  himself,  he  is  surprised.  The 
usual  estimate  of  Browning's  skill  is  simply  one  of  the 
ruts  of  criticism.  Has  it  occurred  to  you  that  it  may  be 
partly  due  to  the  fact  that  the  critics  who  first  estabHshed 
it  may  not  have  been  widely  enough  acquainted  with 
Literature  and  so  condemned  as  inartistic  what  was  simply 
unfamiliar  to  them  ?  ^  Not  long  ago,  in  studying  for 
another  course  without  regard  to  Browning,  it  fell  to  me 
to  go  through  a  good  number  of  books  on  English  metre. 
And  I  found,  in  books  written  from  different  standpoints 
and  following  different  methods  of  inquiry,  that,  when 
it  came  to  discussing  rare  and  difl&cult  metres,  often  metres 
imported  from  other  languages,  they  frequently  had  to 
cite  Robert  Browning  for  examples.^  It  is  quite  probable 
that  Browning's  literary  reputation  has  suffered  because 
many  of  his  metres  are  unfamiliar.  But  we  must  say 
that  it  is  not  fair  to  suppose  a  man  unskilled  and  lawless, 
when  he  is  working  often  in  metres  too  difficult  for  most 
poets  to  use.  Anyway,  I  have  come  more  and  more  to 
doubt  the  sweeping  statements  made  in  many  books  and 
periodicals,  about  the  literary  skill  shown  in  Browning's 
poems.  There  are  a  few  points  of  excellence  in  Browning 
from  the  standpoint  of  his  craftsmanship  in  English  poetry, 
and  these  I  would  like  to  mention  now. 

^  Cf.  the  musical  critics'  treatment  of  Richard  Wagner  when  his  operas 
first  appeared. 

2  e.g.¥.  B.  Gummere,  A  Handbook  of  Poetics,  Boston,  1898,  pp.  203,  207, 
209 ;  T.  S.  Omond,  A  Study  of  Metre,  London,  1903,  p.  64 ;  J.  B.  Mayor, 
A  Handbook  of  Modern  English  Metre,  Cambridge,  1903,  pp.  27,  81,  142, 
145.  For  a  thorough  discussion  of  Browning's  metres,  see  Geo.  Saintsbury, 
A  History  of  English  Prosody,  London,  1906-10,  vol.  Ill,  pp.  216-240; 
cf.  pp.  296-301,  especially  pp.  299, 300. 


62  BROWNING  STUDIES 

I.  His  choice  of  words,  I  don't  know  anyone  in  English 
Literature  who  chooses  words  that  give  so  much  in  one 
word  as  Robert  Browning  does,  —  a  whole  picture  in  one 
word.  It  seems  unnecessary  to  point  out  single  examples. 
It  is  his  habit  when  writing  at  his  best.  But  I  will  cite  a 
few  instances  out  of  hundreds.  The  Italics  in  the  illus- 
trations are  our  own,  to  call  attention  to  the  words  under 
discussion. 

a.  In  the  poem  entitled  By  the  Fire-side,  the  man  who 
speaks  the  lines  imagines  what  he  will  do  when  he  gets 
to  be  old  —  he  will  sit  there  by  the  fire  ''deep  in  Greek" 
—  but  his  mind  will  run  away  from  the  Greek  up  irfto  the 
Apennines,  back  to  that  day  with  the  sweetheart  of  his 
youth.  Then  he  gives  us  details  of  the  picture  in  which 
every  stanza  is  a  work  of  art.  But  we  pause  at  the  first 
two  lines  of  stanza  viii :  ^ 

"A  turn,  and  we  stand  in  the  heart  of  things; 
The  woods  are  round  us,  heaped  and  dim." 

Anyone  who  has  been  in  the  Alps  or  Apennines  knows 
how  accurately  these  words  tell  the  tale.  In  a  tramp  of 
six  weeks  in  the  higher  valleys  of  Switzerland,  not  less 
than  a  hundred  times  where  valleys  narrowed  down  these 
words  came  and  no  others  would  cover  it  —  mountains 
on  every  side  —  ''we  stand  in  the  heart  of  things"  — 
"woods  heaped  and  dim."  Nothing  but  that  word  heaped 
could  describe  the  woods  on  the  steep  slopes  and  spurs 
and  knolls  —  heaped,  that's  how  they  look. 

h.  The  poem  "Childe  Roland  to  the  Dark  Tower  Came'' 
was  written  in  one  day  and  not  afterward  revised.  It 
has  some  stanzas  that  are  not  ppetry  at  all  and  some  that 
are  of  the  most  consummate  poetry  to  be  found.    The 

I  P.  246,  U.  I,  2. 


BROWNING  AS  A   LITERARY  ARTIST  63 

knight,  Sir  "Roland,  walks  across  the  dreariest  plain  which 
imagination  can  devise  and  is  surprised  by  coming  upon 
^'a,  sudden  little  river."  Notice  this  part  of  the  description 
of  the  stream  :  ^ 

"All  along, 
Low  scrubby  alders  kneeled  down  over  it." 

Have  you  ever  heard  any  expression  which  could  convey 
that  picture  like  the  words  ^^ kneeled  down  over  it"?  You 
have  seen  it  —  you  know  how  a  brook  cuts  across  a  level 
pasture  or  meadow,  and  the  steep  banks  are  three  or  four 
feet  high,  and  how  the  alders  grow  out  from  the  bank  near 
the  water-line  and  then  bend  sharply  to  grow  upright. 
How  often  we  have  noticed  that  bend  in  the  stock  of  the 
bush,  six  or  eight  inches  from  where  it  comes  out  of  the 
ground,  almost  exactly  like  the  crook  of  a  knee,  —  so  that, 
glancing  at  it  from  the  side,  not  bothering  our  minds  as 
to  how  it  came  to  be  so,  we  see  the  alder  kneel  down  over 
the  water. 

c.  In  the  same  poem,  stanza  xxx,  when  at  last  suddenly 
the  knight  realizes  that  he  has  reached  the  place  he  has 
been  years  searching  for :  ^ 

"Burningly  it  came  on  me  all  at  once, 
This  was  the  place  ! " 

^'Burningly  it  came"  —  Any  of  us  who  have  noticed  what 
comes  with  a  sudden  realization  of  something  that  con- 
cerns us  deeply  —  the  flush  of  heat  which  goes  over  the 
whole  body,  often  making  one  break  out  in  a  perspiration 
even  in  a  cold  day  —  will  know  that  all  that  is  told,  sharply 
and  conclusively,  in 

'  "Burningly  it  came  on  me  all  at  once." 

^  P.  377, 11.  34,  35,  in  stanza  xx.  '  P.  378,  U.  25,  26. 


64  BROWNING  STUDIES 

d.  Or  take  the  line  from  In  a  Balcony:  ^ 

"As  yonder  mists  curdling  before  the  moon." 

Could  any  other  word  create  in  the  mind  the  picture 
created  by  that  word  curdling?  We  have  all  seen  the 
thing,  but  I  doubt  if  any  man  in  literature  has  described 
it  so  accurately  as  Browning  has  in  the  words 

"yonder  mists  curdling  before  the  moon." 

e.  This  facility  in  using  the  most  expressive  word  or 
phrase  to  convey  the  picture  vividly  is  one  of  the  com- 
monest things  in  Browning's  writing,  and  the  expression 
is  so  apt  that,  once  you  get  it  in  mind,  the  thing  itself 
always  calls  up  Browning's  words. 

(i)  How  many  times  every  autumn  a  day  comes  that 
brings  to  my  mind  the  lines  from  poem  vii  of  James  Lee's 
Wife:'' 

"Oh,  good  gigantic  smile  o'  the  brown  old  earth, 
This  autumn  morning !" 

(2)  How  often  on  days  when  the  breeze  pours  over  the 
hills  and  plains  have  the  words  come,  from  Browning's 
Two  in  the  Campagna :  ^ 

"An  everlasting  wash  of  air." 

(3)  By  the  seaside,  over  and  over  again  come  the  lines 
from  Balaustion's  Adventure:  ^ 

"Beside 
The  sea,  which  somehow  tempts  the  life  in  us 
To  come  trip  over  its  white  waste  of  waves, 
And  try  escape  from  earth,  and  fleet  as  free." 

1  P.  481, 1.  78.  2  P.  490,  U.  21,  22.  3  p.  251, 1.  9. 

*  P.  574,  11.  1-4.  In  line  4,  "and  fleet  as  free,"  i.e.  as  free  as  the  foam 
itself. 


FROWNING  AS  A   LITERARY  ARTIST  65 

Most  of  US  feel  the  drawing  of  the  sea,  but  I  do  not  know 
where  to  find  anything  that  gets  at  the  very  essence  of  it 
as  Browning  does  when  he  writes  that  the  sea  '^somehow 
tempts  the  life  in  us." 

(4)  Or  take  a  summer  day  with  keen  breeze  and  unusually 
clear  air,  and  dark  blue  sky  with  only  now  and  then  some 
deep  fragment  of  white  cloud  voyaging  across  it,  and  the 
words  of  the  same  Greek  girl  in  Aristophanes*  Apology 
will  haunt  your  memory :  ^ 

"  Greed  and  strife, 
Hatred  and  cark  and  care,  what  place  have  they 
In  yon  blue  liberality  of  heaven?" 

You  will  go  far  before  you  find  words  that  tell  what  you're 
looking  at  on  such  a  day,  as  do  the  words  ''yon  bltie  liberality 
of  heaven." 

But  an  unusual  skill  in  the  choice  of  words  is  really  a 
habit  with  Robert  Browning.  So  we  need  not  dwell  on 
it  any  more. 

2.  His  wealth  of  diction.    Of  this  only  a  few  observations : 

a.  Browning's  vocabulary  is  astonishingly  large  and 
varied.  I  don't  believe  it  is  exceeded  by  any  except 
Shakespeare's.  Unfortunately,  as  already  noticed,  it  con- 
tains much  besides  a  strictly  EngHsh  vocabulary.  It  is 
a  sort  of  cosmopolitan  vocabulary.  But  fortunately, 
what  is  strictly  English  in  it  is  of  very  wide  range. 

b.  Browning  does  not  hesitate  to  coin  words  when  he 
needs  them,  or  thinks  he  needs  them,  e.g. 

(i)  ''malleolable"  2  —  From  Latin  malleus,  a  hammer, 
we  have  malleable^  capable  of  being  shaped  by  the  blows 
of  a  hammer.  But  Browning  wants  a  more  discriminating 
word.    So  from  malleolus,  the  diminutive  of  malleus,  he 

1  P.  576, U.  1-3. 

'  In  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  p.  658, 1. 44. 


66  BROWNING  STUDIES 

gets  malleolable,  capable  of  being  shaped  by  blows  of  a 
little  hammer. 

(2)  "unstridulosity"  ^  —  We  have  the  adjective  slridu- 
lous,  making  a  sharp  creaking  sound,  the  verb  stridulate, 
the  noun  stridulation,  and  so  on.  But  we  do  not  find  in 
any  of  the  dictionaries  either  stridulosity  or  unstridulosity. 
Browning,  however,  supposes  from  stridulous  sl  noun 
stridulosity  which  would  mean  the  act,  or  quality,  of  being 
stridulous,  i.e.  the  giving  of  a  creaking  sound  (but  a  sense 
somewhat  different  from  that  of  stridulation),  and  then  he 
uses  a  negative  prefix  and  makes  unstridulosity,  the  ab- 
sence of  such  an  act,  or  quality.  He  uses  the  word  figura- 
tively in  the  connection,  meaning  simply  the  quietness 
of  the  man,  while  the  others  ^' creak,  creak,  creak."  (See 
11.  following.) 

(3)  ^'un-mouse-colours"  2  —  This  is  a  compilation,  of 
course.  From  the  verb  to  color  and  the  noun  mouse- 
color,  Browning  supposes  a  verb  to  mouse-color  and  then 
prefixes  un-  and  gets  a  verb  to  un-mouse-color ,  i.e.  to  take 
the  mouse-color  off  from  the  skin  of  the  oxen  referred  to 
in  the  passage. 

But  these  coinings  are  mentioned  here  chiefly  as  curiosi- 
ties. The  main  point  has  to  do  with  words  that  are  stand- 
ard English. 

c.  Browning  knows  how  to  use  words  so  as  to  give  an 
impression  of  great  wealth  and  beauty  of  diction,  perhaps 
surpassed  only  by  Shelley  at  his  best  (as  e.g.  in  Adonais). 
By  way  of  illustration : 

(i)  In  The  Last  Ride  Together,  stanza  iii,  the  description 

of  a  sunset :  ^ 

"Hush !  if  you  saw  some  western  cloud 
All  billowy-bosomed,  over-bowed 

1  In  Prince  Hohenstiel-Schwangau,  p.  922, 1.  78. 

'  In  Prince  Hohenstiel-Schwangau,  p.  930, 1.  12.  ^  P.  352, 11. 43-46. 


BROWNING  AS  A  LITERARY  ARTIST  67 

By  many  benedictions  —  sun's 

And  moon's  and  evening-star's  at  once  — " 

(2)  The  beginning  of  Johannes  Agricola  in  Meditation:  ^ 

"There's  heaven  above,  and  night  by  night 

I  look  right  through  its  gorgeous  roof ; 
No  suns  and  moons  though  e'er  so  bright 

Avail  to  stop  me ;  splendour-proof 

I  keep  the  broods  of  stars  aloof : 
For  I  intend  to  get  to  God, 

For  'tis  to  God  I  speed  so  fast, 
For  in  God's  breast,  my  own  abode, 

Those  shoals  of  dazzUng  glory  passed, 

I  lay  my  spirit  down  at  last." 

And  so  in  an  immense  number  of  instances. 

3.  And  in  the  drawing  of  pictures  on  a  larger  scale  than 
in  single  words  and  phrases,  Browning  excels.  This  is 
related,  of  course,  both  to  his  choice  of  words  and  to  his 
wealth  of  diction.  His  poems  abound  in  vividness,  — 
scenes  cut  out  like  cameos  and  quite  unforgettable  —  some 
humorous,  some  serious,  but  all  showing  this  skill.  In 
that  little  poem  By  the  Fire-side  are  a  dozen  word-pictures, 
any  one  of  them  worth  transferring  to  canvas  in  crayon. 
In  Love  among  the  Ruins,  you  can  see  just  how  the  country 

looks,^ 

"  Where  the  quiet-coloured  end  of  evening  smiles 
Miles  and  miles." 

In  Evelyn  Hope,  you  can  see  the  darkened  room  and  the 
streaming  in  of  the 

"two  long  rays  thro'  the  hinge's  chink."  ' 

In  his  longer  poems  there  is  a  lavish  abundance  of  word- 
pictures,  e.g.  the  autumn  evening  in  Sordello:^ 

1  P.  445,11.10-19.  2p  229, 11.  6s,  66. 

» P.  229, 1.  16.  *  p.  104,  U.  37-41. 


68  BROWNING  STUDIES 

"A  last  remains  of  sunset  dimly  burned 
O'er  the  far  forests,  like  a  torch-flame  turned 
By  the  wind  back  upon  its  bearer's  hand 
In  one  long  flare  of  crimson ;  as  a  brand, 
The  woods  beneath  lay  black." 

You  will  find  this  quality  in  Browning's  writings  almost 
anywhere,  but  perhaps  more  strikingly  in  Paracelsus  and 
The  Ring  and  the  Book. 

4.  And  a  fourth  excellence  is  the  beauty  and  melody  of 
his  lines. 

a.  It  is  usually  charged  that  Robert  Browning  cannot 
write  musical  lines.  This  charge  has  been  passed  from 
mouth  to  mouth  until  it  is  widely  believed.  But  the  fact 
that  once  everybody  believed  that  the  world  was  flat 
didn't  make  it  so.  And  the  repetition  of  the  statement 
that  Browning's  verses  are  not  musical  doesn't  make  it 
so.  The  longer  I  have  read  Browning  the  more  I  have 
come  to  doubt  such  statements.  There's  music  and  music 
—  there's  the  Jew's  harp  and  there's  the  pipe-organ. 

b.  Now,  Browning  did  write  a  large  number  of  harsh 
lines  of  blank  verse  and  usually  did  it  on  purpose,  because 
the  harsh  line  conveyed  an  impression  of  the  condition 
described ;  e.g.  in  the  beginning  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book, 
a  line  which  can  be  cited  as  unusually  harsh :  he  speaks  of 
a  ring  found 

"After  a  dropping  April ;  found  alive 
Spark-like  'mid  unearthed  slope-side  figtree-roots 
That  roof  old  tombs  at  Chiusi." 

That  line  ^ 

"Spark-like  'mid  unearthed  slope-side  figtree-roots" 
is  certainly  rough  enough.     But,  bless  you,  would  smooth 
lines  convey  the  impression  of  the  torn  up  condition  of 

1  P.  640, 1.  5. 


BROWNING  AS  A   LITERARY  ARTIST  69 

the  ground  where  the  ring  is  found  after  the  rain?  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  harsh  torn  Hne  goes  with  the  torn 
soil.     So  with  a  host  of  illustrations. 

It  is  true  that  Browning  did  not  poHsh  his  blank  verse 
so  much  as  Tennyson  did,  but  he  has  the  stronger  vigor  of 
lines  on  that  account.  And  the  harshness  of  his  Hues  has 
been  grossly  exaggerated.  If  you'll  pardon  the  reference 
to  myself :  I  repeated,  some  time  ago,  a  mass  of  The  Ring 
and  the  Book  (three-quarters  of  Caponsacchi's  monologue), 
an  hour  and  a  half  of  it,  in  a  college  town  in  Michigan. 
And  students  in  the  Senior  Class  went  to  their  Professor 
of  English  and  said:  *' How's  this?  We  understood  that 
Browning's  Hues  are  rough  and  harsh.  We  couldn't  see 
it  in  that  hour  and  a  half  of  them."  On  the  contrary, 
you  will  look  long  to  find  anything  superior  in  melody  to 
great  blocks  of  Browning's  blank  verse  in  The  Ring  and 
the  Book,  not  simply  in  Caponsacchi's  speech  but  also  in 
Pompilia's  monologue  or  the  Pope's.  There  is  not  time 
to  quote,  but  I  may  start  a  few : 

(i)  P.  783,  11.  43  sqq., 

"There  was  a  fancy  came." 

(2)  P.  796,  11.  44  sqq., 

"And,  all  day,  I  sent  prayer  like  incense  up." 

(3)  Almost  anywhere  on  pp.  798-802,  the  closing  part  of 
Pompilia's  monologue.     Begin  e.g.  with  p.  798,  1.  5, 

"Forme 
*Tis  otherwise ;  let  men  take,  sift  my  thoughts," 

or  p.  800,  1.  55, 

"For  that  most  woeful  man  my  husband  once," 
or  p.  801,  1.  47, 

"O  lover  of  my  life,  O  soldier-saint." 


70  BROWNING  STUDIES 

(4)  The  Pope,  p.  852, 11.  37  sqq., 

"First  of  the  first, 
Such  I  pronounce  Pompilia." 

You  will  notice  the  melody  also  in  many  other  monologues 
of  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  and  in  Cleon,  Andrea  del  SartOj 
A  Death  in  the  Desert,  and  other  blank  verse  pieces.  I 
might  add  the  lines  from  Balaustion's  Adventure:  ^ 

"Whereat  the  softened  eyes 
Of  the  lost  maidenhood  that  lingered  still 
Straying  among  the  flowers  in  Sicily." 

But  there  is  no  use  in  multiplying  illustrations  to  sub- 
stantiate a  fact  that  is  perfectly  obvious. 

c.  And  in  short  poems  Browning  has  abundance  of 
melody. 

(i)  We  have  only  to  think  of  the  long  vibrating  lines  of 
Aht  Vogler,  flexible  as  a  whiplash,  e.g.^ 

"Therefore  to  whom  turn  I  but  to  Thee,  the  ineffable  Name? 
Builder  and  maker,  Thou,  of  houses  not  made  with  hands !" 

or  the  beauty  of  the  long  line  and  short  line  combination 
in  Love  among  the  Ruins,  or  the  effect  of  many  of  his  lyrics, 
such  as  ^'I  send  my  heart  up  to  thee,  all  my  heart,"  ^ 
or  "Dance,  yellows  and  whites  and  reds."  ^ 

(2)  And  Browning  has  done  what  they've  all  been  trying 
to  do  —  make  the  movement  of  the  lines  themselves  reflect 
the  thing  described  or  narrated.  Thus,  e.g.  in  the  little 
poem  Meeting  at  Night. ^  The  picture  in  the  first  stanza 
is  what  some  of  you  have  seen  when  coming  in  at  evening 
on  the  coast.    Now  start  to  read  the  stanza  out  loud : 

1  p.  573,  U.  32-34. 

«  P.  500, 11.  25,  26. 

3  The  first  song  of  In  a  Gondola,  p.  346, 11.  21-27. 

*  At  end  of  the  parleying  with  Gerard  de  Lairesse,  p.  1276, 11.  67-75. 

6  P.  228,  11.  15-26. 


BROWNING  AS  A   LITERARY  ARTIST  71 

"The  grey  sea  and  the  long  black  land ; 
And  the  yellow  half -moon  large  and  low ;" 

and  the  long  vowels  and  liquid  consonants  make  these 
two  lines  move  slowly  in  spite  of  you.  But  the  rapidity 
of  the  third  and  fourth  Hnes  is  very  evident,  the  voice 
quickening  involuntarily  with  the  sharp  consonants  and 
the  increased  proportion  of  short  vowels : 

"And  the  startled  Uttle  waves  that  leap 
In  fiery  ringlets  from  their  sleep." 

This  all  corresponds  exactly  to  the  scene  —  sea  and  land 
and  moon  all  serene,  and  then  our  attention  suddenly 
attracted  by  the  dancing  waves  at  the  bow  of  the  boat  — 
these  more  noticeable  in  the  shallow  water  just  as  the 
boat  strikes  the  sand.  The  second  stanza  accompHshes 
much  the  same  thing:  Lines  i  and  2  move  slowly  and 
serenely,  as  the  man  crosses  "a.  mile  of  warm  sea-scented 
beach"  and  '^ three  fields,"  —  both  are  lines  in  which 
long  vowels  prevail,  —  but  lines  3  and  4,  describing  what 
happens  at  the  house,  move  quickly  with  an  accumulation 
of  such  words  as  ''tap,"  ''quick,"  "scratch,"  "spurt," 
"match,"  —  all  with  short  vowels  and  crisp  consonants. 
The  poem  is  a  masterly  piece  of  work,  but  the  technique 
with  which  it  is  done  nowhere  obtrudes.  Of  course,  in 
any  such  work,  the  finer  the  technique  the  more  it  serves 
the  thought,  but  the  less  attention  it  attracts  to  itself,  — 
and  perfect  technique  would  attract  no  attention  at  all. 
Such  is  the  irony  of  art. 

(3)  Browning's  short  poems,  again,  are  not  so  polished 
as  Tennyson's.  But  often  they  are  very  effective  by 
reason  of  sheer  ruggedness. 

d.  I  am  sure  that  many  of  Browning's  harsh  and  curious 
rhymes  are  made  in  fun.     They  always  occur  in  some 


72  BROWNING  STUDIES 

serio-comic  thing  like  The  Heretic's  Tragedy  or  A  Gram- 
marian's  Funeral,  or  in  some  jovial  thing  Hke  Old  Pictures 
in  Florence  or  A  Likeness  or  the  Prologue  to  Ferishtah's 
Fancies,  or  in  some  sarcastic  thing  like  Pacchiarotto.  Some- 
one ought  to  get  out  a  book  on  Browning's  humorous  vein.^ 
He  was  so  human  that  he  couldn't  help  seeing  the  funny 
side  to  some  things  which  are  really  very  serious  and  many 
things  which  have  serious  pretensions.  The  mixture  of 
humor  and  seriousness  in  many  of  his  poems,  just  as  it 
exists  in  human  life,  is  very  interesting.  And  it  is  quite 
plain  that  in  some  poems  he  purposely  exaggerates  the 
funny  side;  and  some  poems,  of  course,  are  altogether 
jocular  in  tone.  But  many  critics  have  not  had  the  saving 
grace  of  humor  themselves  and  so  have  taken  in  downright 
earnest  what  Browning  means  as  a  humorous  exercise. 
So  they  are  incKned  to  think  him  a  poor  artist  when  what 
he  is  drawing  is  intended  to  be  nothing  but  a  caricature. 
The  ridiculous  rhymes  in  A  Grammarian's  Funeral  are 
simply  to  help  out  the  grotesqueness  of  the  whole  thing. 
To  understand  them  so  is  altogether  in  keeping  with  the 
pedantic  tone  of  the  man  in  whose  mouth  the  poem  is 
put.  And  the  grotesqueness  is,  no  doubt,  quite  true  to 
the  extravagances  of  these  first  students  in  the  Revival 
of  Learning.  So  we  get  "cock-crow  .  .  .  rock-row,"  ^ 
"overcome  it  .  .  .  summit,"^  "fabric  .  .  .  dab  brick,"  ^ 
"  far  gain  .  .  .  bargain,"  ^  "failure  .  .  .  pale  lure,"  ^ 
''loosened  .  .  .  dew  send."  ^  And  the  rhymes  in  A 
Likeness  are  atrocious,  e.g.^ 

1  Vida  Dutton  Scudder  has  done  something  of  this  in  her  book  The  Life 
of  the  Spirit  in  the  Modern  English  Poets,  Boston,  1895,  pp.  201-238. 

2  P.  366,  U.  56-58.  3  P.  366,  U.  68-70. 
4  P.  367,  U.  36-38.  6  p.  367^  u.  64-66. 
6  P.  367,  U.  76-78.                                              7  P.  368,  U.  1 2-14, 

8P.si8,U.  75-78. 


BROWNING  AS  A   LITERARY  ARTIST  73 

"That  hair's  not  so  bad,  where  the  gloss  is, 
But  they've  made  the  girl's  nose  a  proboscis : 
Jane  Lamb,  that  we  danced  with  at  Vichy  ! 
What,  is  not  she  Jane?    Then,  who  is  she?" 

So  are  the  performances  in  the  Prologue  to  Ferishtah^s 
Fancies,  ^' Italy"  rhyming  '^spit  ally,"  ^  ''unpalatable" 
—  ''each  who's  able,"  ^  "masticate"  —  "peptics'  state."  ^ 
Now,  no  one  with  common  sense  can  suppose  that  these 
things  were  done  otherwise  than  on  purpose  to  be  in  keep- 
ing with  the  spirit  of  these  poems.  Whether  that's  wit 
or  not  is  another  question,  but  it  is  not  to  be  charged  up 
to  awkwardness  and  careless  workmanship. 

5.   Browning's    great   use   of  alliteration   ought    to    be 
mentioned.     Examples  are  hardly  needed : 

"Or,  August's  hair  afloat  in  filmy  fire."  * 

"I  see  the  same  stone  strength  of  white  despair."  ^ 

"Some  dervish  desert-spectre,  swordsman,  saint."  * 

Referring    again    to    presenting    Caponsacchi    before    an 

audience,  —  on  more  than  one  occasion  people  have  spoken 

to  me  of  noticing  the  immense  prevalence  of  aUiteration 

as  they  Hstened.    If  illustrations  from  Caponsacchi  are 

desired : 

''In  glided  a  masked  muflSed  mystery, 

Laid  lightly  a  letter  on  the  opened  book."  ^ 
"Out  of  the  coach  into  the  inn  I  bore 

The  motionless  and  breathless  pure  and  pale 

Pomp^lia."  ^ 

"Still  breathless,  motionless,  sleep's  self, 
Wax-white,  seraphic,  saturate  with  the  sun."  * 

1  P.  1217, 11.  2-4.  2  P.  1217,11.  22-24. 

«  P.  1217, 11.  29-31.  *  P.  666, 1. 30. 

B  P.  882, 1.66.  «P.  911,  1.  29. 

'P.  758, 11.  72, 73.  8 P.  770, U. 31-33. 
»P.  77i,U.  66,  67. 


74  BROWNING  STUDIES 

In  the  last  two  illustrations  we  have  not  only  initial  allitera- 
tion, but,  in  '' breathless"  and  ^'motionless,''  we  have  final 
alliteration  in  -less. 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  overdoing  alliteration,  and 
Browning  may  be  in  danger  of  that,  although  his  allitera- 
tion seldom  produces  anything  except  a  pleasant  effect 
—  a  sense  of  melody  and  harmony.^ 

6.  One  more  point  must  be  spoken  of  among  the  ex- 
cellences of  Browning's  literary  art,  and  that  is  cadence 
of  lines.  In  his  blank  verse,  he  manages  cadence  with 
great  skill.  Cadence  (hterally,  falling)  is  a  thing  that 
can't  be  taught.  It  must  He  in  the  soul  of  the  poet.  It 
is  not  so  much  in  the  words  as  in  the  atmosphere  of  the 
line.  It  is  that  which  makes  you  realize  that  things  are 
coming  to  a  conclusion.  In  single  lines,  it  is  that  which 
causes  the  voice  to  drop  in  spite  of  you  and  creates  in  your 
thoughts  a  sense  that  the  poet  has  written  something 
ultimate.  For  a  case  of  prolonged  cadence,  one  should 
be  familiar  with  the  last  50  lines  of  Pompilia's  monologue 
in  The  Ring  and  the  Book.  For  the  finest  cadence  Brown- 
ing ever  wrote  in  a  single  line,  take  this  from  Cleon:  ^ 

"Within  the  eventual  element  of  calm." 

Few  poets  have  been  able  to  handle  cadence,  and  the 
greatest  poets  have  written  only  a  few  such  lines.  The 
two  most  famous  lines  for  cadence  are  probably  Milton's, 
in  Sampson  Agonistes,  ^ 

1  Prof.  John  B.  Nykerk,  in  conversation,  has  raised  the  question  whether 
Browning  was  influenced  by  Old  English  alliterative  verse,  or,  leaving  the 
O.  E.  literature  out  of  account,  whether  it  may  not  be  possible  that  certain 
elements  of  personality  and  tendency  to  grapple  with  life,  which  developed  the 
alliterative  verse-form  in  Anglo-Saxon  days,  may  be  the  same  that  produce 
in  Browning's  poems  such  a  high  degree  of  alliteration. 

2P.  468,  1.32. 

3  Sampson  Agonistes,  1.  598,  (Cambridge  Ed.,  Boston,  1899,  p.  301). 


BROWNING  AS  A   LITERARY  ARTIST  75 

"And  I  shall  shortly  be  with  them  that  rest," 
and  Tennyson's,  in  Guinevere,^ 

"To  where  beyond  these  voices  there  is  peace." 

But  it  seems  to  me  the  cadence  in  this  line  of  Browning's 
is  fully  equal  to  that  in  the  others. 

"And  I  shall  shortly  be  with  them  that  rest." 
"To  where  beyond  these  voices  there  is  peace." 
"Within  the  eventual  element  of  calm." 

Surely  Browning's  line  is  as  good  as  the  best. 

7.  Poetic  imagination  is  closely  related  to  craftsmanship 
in  the  art  of  verse.  The  first  essential  is  that  a  man  have 
somewhat  to  write,  and  fundamental  to  this  is  poetic 
imagination.  But  the  subject  is  too  large  to  be  discussed 
here.  It  may  be  added,  however,  that  in  extent,  daring, 
and  vividness,  Browning's  imagination  is  equal  to  that 
of  the  greatest  poets  of  the  world.  This  is  plain  in  the 
whole  conception  and  handling  of  his  work.  Even  those 
who  grudge  to  concede  to  Browning  a  firstclass  skill  in 
versification  are  obliged  to  pay  their  tribute  to  his  mind. 
Certainly  his  works  show  on  every  page  the  vast  power  of 
an  imagination  which  is  creative  and  life-giving  in  the 
highest  degree. 

In  choice  of  words,  then,  in  wealth  of  diction,  in  ability 
to  draw  word-pictures,  in  beauty  and  melody  of  lines,  in 
use  of  alliteration,  and  in  the  producing  of  cadence,  we 
find  Browning  a  literary  artist  of  high  rank.  And  in  poetic 
imagination,  he  is  without  a  superior. 

^  The  last  line  of  Guinevere  in  the  Idylls  of  the  King,  (Globe  Ed.,  New  York 
1892,  p.  458). 


m 

INTRODUCTION  (CONCLUDED) :    OUR  PLAN  OF 
STUDY  IN  THIS   COURSE 

A  WORD  about  our  plan  of  study  in  this  course. 

1.  There  is  no  way  to  understand  Browning  except  by 
reading  Browning  and  reading  a  large  amount  of  Browning. 
This  brings  our  minds  into  harmony  with  his,  and  we 
understand  him  easily.  Nothing  can  ever  take  the  place 
of  this. 

2.  The  surest  rule  for  dealing  with  a  passage  which  is 
difficult  to  understand  is  the  rule  already  in  vogue  among 
Browning  students:  Read  it.  If  you  don't  understand 
it,  read  it  again.  If  you  don't  understand  it  then,  read  it 
again.  If  still  you  don't  understand  it,  read  it  again. 
And  read  it  until  you  do  understand  it.  This  is  scientific. 
The  trouble  is  that  either  the  thought  or  the  method  of 
expressing  it  is  unusual.  Therefore,  we  need  to  have  our 
minds  tuned  up  to  it.  By  reading  it  we  are  tuning  our 
minds  up  to  Browning's  when  he  wrote  it,  —  and  presently 
it  is  plain  and  easy  to  us. 

3.  These  principles,  that  the  only  way  to  under- 
stand Browning  is  to  read  much  of  him  and  to  read 
till  we  understand,  will  govern  our  study  in  this 
course. 

4.  Our  general  plan  will  be  to  go  from  short  poems  to 
the  longer  and  more  complex  ones.    Sometimes  I  shall 

76 


OUR  PLAN  OF  STUDY  77 

have  to  assign  more  than  we  can  discuss  in  class.    We 
will  begin  with  some  of  the  short  poems  next  time.^ 

1  In  the  college  classes,  at  the  close  of  each  lecture,  the  poems  to  be  dis- 
cussed at  the  next  meeting  of  the  class  have  been  assigned.  The  assignment 
has  grouped  the  shorter  poems  and  could  usually  be  read  in  two  hours, 
though  sometimes  it  would  take  more.  Reading  once  the  assignments 
has  been  required.  Students  have  been  also  advised  to  read  twice,  if  possible, 
all  assignments,  i.e.  before  the  lecture  dealing  with  them  and  after  the 
lecture.  Twice  reading  could  not,  of  course,  be  required,  because  of  time 
consumed  in  once  reading  the  Browning  assignment  and  in  attending  to 
the  outside  reading.  In  examination,  each  student  has  had  to  answer 
whether  he  has  done  all  the  reading  assigned  in  Browning's  works  and  outside 
of  Browning's  works. 


IV 

SOME     OF     THE     SHORT     POEMS     PUBLISHED 
BEFORE  MRS.   BROWNING'S  DEATH 

The  titles  of  Browning's  volumes  as  they  appeared 
have  been  preserved  as  headings  of  the  divisions  in  his 
collected  works,  with  only  one  modification.^  But  many 
short  poems  are  not  now  found  under  the  general  heading 
which  corresponds  to  the  volume  in  which  they  first  ap- 
peared. This  is  on  account  of  the  redistribution  made 
by  Browning  in  his  collected  works  of  1863  and  1868. 
Thus,  e.g.  Men  and  Women,  2  vols.,  when  published  in 
1855,  contained  51  poems.  Now  only  13  are  left  standing 
in  that  division  of  his  works,  and  of  these  only  eight  were 
in  the  original  Men  and  Women,  the  other  five  being  three 
that  appeared  in  Dramatic  Lyrics,  1842,  and  two  from 
Dramatic  Romances  and  Lyrics,  1845.  At  the  same  time, 
43  poems  that  appeared  in  Men  and  Women  in  1855  ^^^ 
now  distributed  under  several  different  divisions  of  the 
collected  works.  This  was  done,  of  course,  simply  because 
Browning,  having  his  works  before  him,  saw  that  these 
poems,  by  reason  of  subject  and  treatment,  belong  more 
appropriately  under  other  general  heads.  Men  and  Women 
is  cited  simply  as  an  illustration  of  the  shaking  up  which 
took  place  in  all  the  volumes  of  short  poems.^    The  matter 

*  Dramatic  Romances  and  Lyrics,  1845,  has  been  shortened  to  simply 
Dramatic  Romances. 

2  The  short  poems  published  in  volumes  subsequent  to  1868  stand  now 
in  the  works  under  the  titles  of  those  volumes,  and  in  the  same  order  in 
which  they  first  appeared. 

78 


CAVALIER  TUNES  79 

is  mentioned  here  to  avoid  confusion  in  the  mind  of  the 
reader,  when  he  notices  that,  in  the  following  comment 
on  some  of  the  short  poems,  a  poem  is  said  to  have  been 
pubHshed  in  a  certain  volume,  and  then  finds  the  poem 
now  in  an  entirely  different  division  of  Browning's  works. 

I.   Cavalier  Tunes,  pp.  219,  220 

Published  in  Dramatic  Lyrics ^  1842. 

1 .  These  songs  are  set  in  the  war  between  King  Charles  I, 
of  England,  and  the  Parliament,  1642-45.  The  cavaliers 
who  sing  them  are  on  the  King's  side. 

2.  The  songs  are  full  of  references  to  the  men  of  the 
time:  King  Charles  (bom  1600,  crowned  1625,  beheaded 
1649)  and  his  opponents  —  Oliver  Cromwell  (i 599-1 658), 
John  Pym  (1584-1643),  John  Hampden  (1594-1643), 
Sir  Arthur  Hazelrig  (died  1661),  Nathaniel  Fiennes  (1608- 
1669),  *' Young  Harry"  (beheaded  1662)  son  of  Sir  Henry 
Vane.  Prince  Rupert  of  Bavaria  (1619-1682),  grandson 
of  James  I,  went  to  England  at  the  beginning  of  the  Civil 
War  to  help  the  cause  of  his  uncle,  King  Charles.  His 
coming  appears  in  the  first  song,  encouraging  the  cavaliers. 
*' Kentish  Sir  Byng"  is  some  knight  from  Kent,  no  his- 
torical person. 

3.  These  are  real  soldier-songs.  Songs  in  Literature 
put  into  the  mouths  of  soldiers  are  usually  too  literary, 
and  too  soft  and  musical.  These  are  rough  songs  such 
as  real  soldiers  might  sing.  The  historical  names  men- 
tioned are  names  that  were  in  everyone's  mouth  in  those 
days.  The  songs  have  plenty  of  rough  soldier-spirit, 
with  sneers  at  the  Puritans  on  account  of  their  short  hair 
("crop-headed  Parliament"  in  the  first  song,  *' Round- 
heads" in  the  third  song),  with  Cromwell's  nickname 
"Noll"  (for  Oliver),  and  with  the  use  of  such  words  as 


8o  BROWNING  STUDIES 

"the  devil"  and  "hell"  without  which  a  soldier's  song 
would  be  feeble,  and  even  a  stronger  word  when  Crom- 
well's troopers  are  mentioned  in  the  second  song.  The 
word  "carles"  (twice  in  first  song)  means  churls  —  the 
two  words  are  doublets  from  Old' English  ceorl. 

4.  Browning  has  given  to  the  chorus  of  the  third  song 
the  movement  of  galloping  horses,  i.e.  it  certainly  seems 
as  if  the  line 

"Boot,  saddle,  to  horse,  and  away !" 

gallops  as  you  read  it. 

II.  The  Lost  Leader,  p.  220 

Published  1845,  ^^  Dramatic  Romances  and  Lyrics. 

The  poem  refers  to  one  who  deserts  the  people's  cause. 
The  poem  is  a  severe  one.  From  the  fact  that  it  mentions 
Shakespeare,  Milton,  Burns,  Shelley,  as  being  on  the 
people's  side,  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  the  recreant  is 
a  literary  man.  Wordsworth  fills  the  bill,  —  a  liberal 
in  his  youth  and  intensely  moved  by  the  French  Revolu- 
tion —  in  later  years  opposing  innovations  and  progressive 
legislation.  In  1875,  Browning  was  asked  if  he  referred 
to  Wordsworth  in  the  poem  and  answered :  ^  "I  have  been 
asked  the  question  you  now  address  me  with,  and  as  duly 
answered,  I  can't  remember  how  many  times.  There  is 
no  sort  of  objection  to  one  more  assurance,  or  rather  con- 
fession, on  my  part,  that  I  did  in  my  hasty  youth  presume 
to  use  the  great  and  venerable  personality  of  Wordsworth 
as  a  sort  of  painter's  model;  one  from  which  this  or  the 
other  particular  feature  may  be  selected  and  turned  to 
account." 

1  We  quote  only  a  part  of  the  letter.  It  was  printed  in  Grosart's  Edition 
of  Wordsworth's  Prose  Worksy  and  is  reprinted  in  Berdoe,  Browning  Cyclo- 
pedia, pp.  256,  257. 


GARDEN  FANCIES  8l 

III.   Gajiden  Fancies,  pp.  222-224 

These  were  first  printed  in  Hood's  Magazine,  July,  1844, 
and  then  were  included  in  Dramatic  Romances  and  Lyrics y 

1845. 

1.  The  first  one,  The  Flower's  Name,  is  made  up  of  the 
thoughts  of  a  lover  as  he  walks  again  where  he  walked  in 
the  garden  with  his  sweetheart,  where  so  many  things  are 
associated  with  her,  but  especially  the  flower  whose  name 
she  told  him.    The  poem  is  gentle  and  delicate. 

2.  The  second,  Sihrandus  Schafnaburgensis,  is  full  of 
exuberant  humor,  drawing  the  contrast  between  a  dead 
book  of  philosophy  and  the  real  world  of  Kving  things. 

a.  The  title  is  the  name  of  the  author  of  the  old  book 
supposed  to  be  brought  into  the  garden.  Grifiin  and 
Minchin,  in  their  Life  of  Browning,  point  out  that  he  met 
such  names  in  reading  as  a  boy  Nathaniel  Wanley's  Wonders 
of  the  Little  World  ^  in  his  father's  library.  Schafnaburgensis 
means  a  native  of  the  city  of  Aschaffenburg,  on  the  river 
Main  in  the  province  of  Lower  Franconia  in  Bavaria. 

h.  The  poem  is  so  fine  a  thing  that  we  are  justified  in 
adding  these  notes : 

P.  223,  1.  44.  The  punctuation  at  the  end  of  this  line 
in  the  Globe  Edition  should  be  a  comma  instead  of  a 
period.     The  sentence  runs  on  into  the  next  stanza. 

1.  46,  arbute,  arbutus,  a  genus  of  evergreen  shrubs,  of 
the  heath  family.  There  are  several  species.  This  is 
probably  the  most  common  one,  called  the  "strawberry 
tree"  from  its  fruit  which  outwardly  resembles  the  straw- 
berry. Not  to  be  confused  with  the  "trailing  arbutus" 
of  the  U.  S.  A. 

*  Wanley's  book  was  published  in  1678.  There  are  also  editions  of  1774 
and  1806-0.7. 


82  BROWNING  STUDIES 

laurustine,  (also  spelled  laurestine),  Viburnum  tinuSj 
an  evergreen  shrub  or  tree  of  the  south  of  Europe;  it 
flowers  during  the  winter  months. 

1.  50,  Stonehenge,  on  Salisbury  Plain  eight  miles  north 
of  Salisbury.  The  remains,  supposed  to  be  of  Druid  origin, 
consist  of  upright  stones  and  some  horizontal  slabs.  The 
original  plan  of  the  whole  can  be  made  out.  A  traveller 
might  well  be  tempted  to  count  the  stones. 

1.  55,  pont-levis,  drawbridge  (literally,  light  bridge). 

1.  66,  Chablis,  a  town  in  France  in  the  department  of 
Yonne,  famous  for  its  wines  —  hence  Chablis,  wine  from 
this  place.    Not  to  be  confused  with  Chablais  ^  in  Savoy. 

1.  67,  oaf,  a  repulsive  elf,  used  here  figuratively  for  the 
book. 

1.  68,  Rabelais,  Francois  Rabelais  (1495-1553),  great 
scholar  and  humorist  of  the  Renaissance,  evidently  a 
favorite  with  Browning.^ 

1.  70,  limbo,  a  supposed  border  land  somewhere  between 
Heaven  and  Hell,  where  certain  souls  have  to  await  judg- 
ment. Hence  any  place  apart  from  the  world,  place  of 
confinement. 

1.  72,  akimbo,  with  elbows  sticking  out  and  hands  on 
hips. 

^    11.  74,  75,  de  profundis,  accentibus  loetis,  cantate!,  out  of 
the  depths  sing  with  joyful  tones,  (or  accents). 

P.  224,  1.  2,  right  of  trover,  right  to  a  thing  that  is  found. 
Laws  of  trover  refer  to  possession  of  things  one  finds  in 
highways  and  such  places. 

1.  II,  John  Knox,  1505-157 2,  Scottish  reformer,  severe 
Presbyterian,    very    Puritanical,    e.g.    his    volume,    1558, 

1  Cf .  A  Likeness,  p.  518,  1.  67,  "And  the  chamois-homs  ('shot  in  the 
Chablais')." 

'  Cf.  A  Likeness,  p.  518, 1.  70,  "And  the  little  edition  of  Rabelais." 


GARDEN  FANCIES  83 

entitled  Blasts  of  the  Trumpet  against  the  Monstrous  Regi- 
ment of  Women.    Of  course,  nothing  could  be  more  ludicrous 
than  John  Knox  fastened  into  the  front  row  in  an  opera 
house  and  obliged  to  witness  a  ballet. 
1.  17,  sufficit,  it  is  enough. 

c.  According  to  the  poem,  Browning  (or  whoever  is 
speaker  of  the  lines)  reads  the  old  dry  book  conscientiously 

"From  title-page  to  closing  line," 

and  then  proceeds  to  his  revenge.  This  consists  in  dump- 
ing the  book  down  the  hollow  trunk  of  an  old  plum-tree. 
That  was  ''last  month."  Some  days  have  passed,  and 
meantime  the  book  has  lain  there  among  the  rain-drippings 
and  all  the  wild  creatures  that  inhabit  the  decaying  inside 
of  the  old  tree.  The  buoyant  fancy  of  Browning  revels  in 
the  contrast  between  the  dead  book  and  the  Hving  things. 
This  morning,  he  fishes  up  the  book  with  a  rake  and  prom- 
ises it  a  return  to  his  shelf  where  it  can 

"Dry-rot  at  ease  till  the  Judgment-day." 

d.  The  poem  abounds  in  gentle  irony.  This  dreary 
book  is  called  "our  friend,"  "my  bookshelf's  magnate," 
"his  delectable  treatise." 

e.  The  poem  should  be  read  many  times.  It  will  be 
found  highly  rejuvenating  to  drooping  spirits.  Only  a 
few  Hues  need  be  quoted  as  samples : 

(i)  The  spider  whose  web  had  been  woven  across  the 
hole  in  the  tree : 

"Now,  this  morning,  betwixt  the  moss 

And  gum  that  locked  our  friend  in  limbo, 
A  spider  had  spun  his  web  across, 
And  sat  in  the  midst  with  arms  akimbo." 

(2)  Everyone  knows  how  disastrous  to  the  appearance 


84  BROWNING  STUDIES 

of  a  book  a  wetting  is,  but  no  one  has  ever  told  it  more 
skilfully  than  Browning  here : 

"Here  you  have  it,  dry  in  the  sun, 

With  all  the  binding  all  of  a  blister, 
And  great  blue  spots  where  the  ink  has  run, 

And  reddish  streaks  that  wink  and  glister 
O'er  the  page  so  beautifully  yellow : 

Oh,  well  have  the  droppings  played  their  tricks  !" 

Then  comes  a  very  funny  turn  —  did  this  dfy-as-dust 
philosopher  of  long  ago  know  anything  about  things  that 
have  become  associated  with  his  book? 

"Did  he  guess  how  toadstools  grow,  this  fellow? 
Here's  one  stuck  in  his  chapter  six ! " 

(3)  Then  follows  that  turning  loose  of  the  poet's  imagina- 
tion as  to  the  incongruous  experiences  of  the  old  book, 

"when  the  live  creatures 
Tickled  and  toused  and  browsed  him  all  over," 

in  the  midst  of 

"All  that  life  and  fun  and  romping. 

All  that  frisking  and  twisting  and  coupling." 

It  partakes  of  Browning's  sympathy  with  all  forms  of  life. 

IV.  Meeting  at  Night,  Parting  at  Morning,  p.  228 

Published  in  Dramatic  Romances  and  Lyrics,  1845. 

1.  These  are  certainly  two  exquisite  bits  of  scenery,  and 
something  be?vies. 

2.  Browning  has  the  courage  to  make  them  true  and 
vivid,  where  a  poet  given  to  more  poHshing  would  have 
removed  them  from  reality.  Thus,  if  the  over-nice  object 
to  such  phrases  as  ''the  slushy  sand"  and  the  "blue  spurt" 
of  the  match,  they  must  remember  that  the  sand  at  the 
water's  edge  is  simply  slushy  and  that  the  ''blue  spurt" 


MEETING  AT  NIGHT,  PARTING  AT  MORNING      85 

of  the  phosphorus  and  sulphur  match  (the  kind  of  match 
everybody  used  to  have)  is  what  we  saw  evening  after 
evening.  I  am  reminded  of  a  discussion  between  some 
theological  students,  objecting  to  the  preacher's  having 
said  in  an  illustration  that  the  tide  was  out  and  the  boats 
were  "stuck  in  the  mud/'  —  the  discussion  being  chiefly 
how  to  say  the  boats  were  stuck  in  the  mud  without  say- 
ing they  were  stuck  in  the  mud.  There's  too  much  of 
that  nonsense,  and  Robert  Browning  would  have  none  of 
it.  He  used  the  words  that  convey  accurately  what  he 
was  describing. 

3.  The  remarkable  quality  of  Meeting  at  Night  has  been 
referred  to  in  our  discussion  of  Browning's  Uterary  art. 
We  might  call  attention  to  how  true  to  Ufe  is  the  woman's 
sitting  in  the  dusk  waiting  for  the  man  to  come  and  Hght- 
ing  the  lamp  at  his  tap  on  the  window-pane.  The  pas- 
sionate greeting  in  the  last  two  lines  should  not  be  over- 
looked, her  voice  less  loud  than  the  beating  of  their  hearts. 

4.  Parting  at  Morning  is  not  such  a  piece  of  art  as  Meet- 
ing at  Night,  but  it  is  a  worthwhile  bit  nevertheless.  The 
tide  is  coming  in  rapidly  —  it  seems  as  if  the  sea  comes 
round  the  cape  of  a  sudden.  The  sun  comes  up  over  the 
mountains  to  the  eastward,  making  a  path  of  gold  across 
the  water  toward  the  observer  —  it  is  "a  path  of  gold  for 
him,"  i.e.  for  the  sun,  as  if  he  were  going  to  travel  across 
the  world  on  the  path  of  gold  that  is  on  the  water,  {straight, 
probably  the  adjective,  predicate  after  was, ,  but  maybe 
the  adverb,  straightway).  With  the  coming  of  the  tide 
and  the  sun,  the  man  must  hasten  back  to  his  business  and 
struggle  in  the  city. 

5.  Both  poems  are  in  the  mouth  of  the  man,  not  the 
second  one  in  the  mouth  of  the  woman  as  Dr.  Berdoe  ^ 

*  Berdoe,  Browning  Cyclopadia,  ed.  191 2,  p.  270. 


86  BROWNING  STUDIES 

supposes.  "Him"  means  the  sun.  The  point  is  that 
even  as  the  sun  goes  forth  for  the  day  along  his  golden 
path,  so  the  man  must  needs  go  forth  into  the  ''world  of 
men."  No  wonder  that,  with  such  a  start,  Berdoe  finds 
the  fourth  line  ''slightly  obscure." 

V.  Evelyn  Hope,  p.  229 

Published  in  1855  in  Men  and  Women,  vol.  I. 

1.  It  is  a  poem  of  great  intensity.  The  lover  asks  us 
to  come  and  sit  by  the  side  of  this  sixteen-year-old  girl 
where  she  lies  dead,  and  he  succeeds  in  speaking  to  us  for 
two  stanzas  about  her,  but  the  rest  of  the  poem  is  ad- 
dressed to  her.  Though  he  was  "thrice  as  old"  as  she 
and  though  their  "  paths  in  the  world  diverged  so  wide," 
he  loved  her  and  will  love  her  forever. 

2.  Stanzas  v,  vi,  and  vii  would  be  plainer  to  us  if  the 
punctuation  were  such  as  we  are  accustomed  to,  i.e.  with 
what  he  intends  to  say  at  last  to  Evelyn  Hope  enclosed  in 
quotation  marks,  thus  e.g. 

When,  "  Evelyn  Hope,  what  meant,"  I  shill  say. 

The  quotation  ends  with  the  fourth  line  of  stanza  v,  and 
he  goes  on  to  say  what  he  will  learn.  Then  the  quotation 
is  resumed  with  stanza  vi,  "I  have  lived,"  I  shall  say,  and 
continues  to  the  middle  of  stanza  vii.'  The  remaining 
four  lines  are  addressed  to  her  now,  and  would  be  outside 
the  quotation. 

3.  We  are  not  to  understand  from  stanzas  iv,  v,  and  vi 
that  Browning  believes  in  metempsychosis.  He  does  not 
give  in  his  support  to  that  doctrine.  But  the  point  is 
that  even  if  it  is  so  and  he  has  to  be  reincarnated  over  and 
over  again  —  give  himself  up  and  live  the  life  of  different 
men  in  different  ages  and  different  lands  —  even  if  that  is 


LOVE  AMONG  THE  RUINS  87 

true,  one  thing  will  persist  through  all  his  various  exist- 
ences, and  that  will  be  his  love  for  Evelyn  Hope.  And 
throughout  all  his  existences  he  will  want  her,  and  when 
he  finds  her  at  last,  he  will  refer  to  "the  years  long  still" 
"in  the  lower  earth"  when  his  "heart  seemed  full  as  it 
could  hold."     But  it  was  not  full  without  her : 

"There  was  place  and  to  spare  for  the  frank  young  smile, 
And  the  red  young  mouth,  and  the  hair's  young  gold." 

And  he  will  tell  her : 

"I  loved  you,  Evelyn,  all  the  while." 

4.  The  reader  is  not  to  suppose  that  he  has  autobiography 
here.  We  are  in  contact  with  Browning's  intense  per- 
sonality, but  poets  in  writing  love-poems  do  not  necessarily 
draw  on  their  own  definite  experience.  Such  is  the  poet's 
imagination. 

5.  The  more  this  poem  is  read  the  more  its  extraordinary 
vividness  strikes  us.  Perhaps  no  detail  contributes  more 
than  does  the  piece  of  geranium  picked  by  her  own  hand, 
still  standing  in  the  glass  of  water  but  beginning  to  die  too. 
The  geranium  is  not  a  poetic  and  romantic  flower,  and 
most  poets  would  avoid  it.  But  Robert  Browning  is 
writing  of  life  as  it  is,  and  knowing  how  common  gera- 
niums are  (or  used  to  be)  as  house-plants,  he  puts  in  a  piece 
of  one  of  Evelyn  Hope's  geraniums  as  a  true  bit  of  the 
setting.     For  this  sort  of  thing  we  honor  him. 

VI.  Love  among  the  Ruins,  pp.  229,  230 

PubUshed  in  1855,  the  first  poem  in  vol.  I  of  Men  and 
Women. 

I.  It  contrasts  the  glory  and  power  and  ostentation 
that  have  been  with  the  love  of  a  girl  —  the  love  that 


88  BROWNING  STUDIES 

now  is,  —  and  finds  ^'love  is  best."    It  is  a  singularly 
graceful  and  attractive  poem. 
2.   A  few  notes  may  be  of  use : 

a.  Consideration  shifts  alternately  from  what  was  when 
the  scene  was  a  populous  city  to  what  is  now  —  just  a 
few  ruins  ^  and  a  girl.  The  emphasis  should  be  strong 
upon  then  and  now  and  ^11  words  which  distinguish  the 
past  from  the  present,  e.g.  ^'he  looked,"  ^'she  looks  now," 
^^they  sent,"  —  so  that  the  two  parts  will  not  be  confused 
but  each  will  furnish  background  for  the  other. 

b.  Browning,  of  course,  always  scorns  the  pedantic 
rules  set  down  in  rhetoric  books,  about  prepositions  at 
the  end  of  clauses  and  sentences.  So  in  this  poem  (stanzas 
I  and  ii)  he  has  (i)  ''its  prince  .  .  .  held  his  court  in," 
where  elaborately  written  prose  would  go :  in  which  its 
prince  held  his  court;  (2)  ''slopes  of  verdure,  certain  rills 
.  .  .  intersect  and  give  a  name  to,"  —  slopes  of  verdure 
which  certain  rills  intersect  and  to  which  they  give  a  name ; 
and  (3)  "a  wall  .  .  .  made  of  marble,  men  might  march 
on,"  —  a  wall  on  which  men  might  march. 

c.  The  latter  half  of  stanza  iii  —  Browning  expects 
that  men  in  the  old  days  were  as  now,  —  with  hearts 
pricked  up  by  desire  for  glory,  struck  tame  by  dread  of 
shame,  and  susceptible  to  the  power  of  gold  —  having 
their  price,  as  cynics  say  every  man  has  now. 

d.  Stanza  v— fleece,  meaning  that  which  is  covered 
by  fleece  viz.  the  flock  of  sheep ;  girl  with  eager  eyes  and 
yellow  hair,  Browning  seems  fond  of  yellow-haired  girls, 
cf.  Porphyria.^ 

e.  Stanza  vi  —  There  should  be  no  mistake  about  the 
third  and  fourth  lines.    Many  editions  do  not  print  cor- 

*  In  fact,  only  the  basement  of  the  great  tower  remains  (stanza  iv). 

*  In  Porphyria's  Lover,  p.  375, 11.  43,  45,  64. 


WYE  AMONG  THE  RUINS  89 

rectly  glades\  possessive  plural  —  the  colonnades  of  the 
glades.  There  were  temples  on  the  mountains  in  the 
distance  (none  near,  stanza  11)  and  there  were  colonnades 
in  the  glades.  Causeys^  causeways.  In  the  latter  half 
of  the  stanza  —  notice  that  there  will  be  two  kinds  of 
embraces :  (i)  first  her  eyes  will  embrace  his  face,  (2)  then 
the  lover  and  the  girl  will  embrace  each  other. 

/.  Stanza  vii  —  As  to  the  pillar  built  to  their  gods  by 
the  ancient  inhabitants:  (i)  The  pillar  was  made  of  the 
brass  of  captured  chariots  (chariots  captured  by  these 
million  fighters  sent  out  in  a  single  year),  and  yet  in  spite 
of  using  so  many  they  were  able  to  reserve  a  thousand 
chariots  which  were  specially  fine,  being  ornamented  with 
gold.  This  makes  ''Gold,  of  course"  apply  to  these  1000 
chariots.  (2)  It  may  be,  however,  that  ''Gold,  of  course" 
has  nothing  to  do  with  "chariots,"  but  means  simply  an 
additional  item  as  to  the  wealth  of  the  city:  "Of  course 
there  was  plenty  of  gold,"  even  though  a  million  men 
were  sent  to  war  in  a  single  year.  (3)  Further,  it  may  be 
that  the  brazen  pillar  has  nothing  to  do  with  captured 
chariots  (although  such  use  of  such  spoils  would  be  quite 
consistent  with  ancient  customs),  and  that  the  1000  chariots 
reserved  are  a  thousand  of  the  king's  own,  i.e.  although  he 
sent  1,000,000  men  to  war  that  year,  he  could  still  reserve 
1000  chariots  at  home.  The  words  "in  full  force"  favor 
this  interpretation. " 

As  to  the  latter  part  of  this  stanza :  (i)  It  may  be  that 
"Earth's  returns  etc."  is  in  apposition  with  "blood  that 
freezes  etc."  i.e.  "blood  that  freezes  etc."  is  all  there  really 
is  of  the  wealth  and  glory.  (2)  Or  it  may  more  likely  be 
that  "Oh  heart!  oh  blood  that  freezes  etc."  is  this  lover's 
own  heart  and  blood,  and  that  the  exclamation  "Earth's 
returns  etc."  is  independent  and  means :   such  are  earth's 


QO  BROWNING  STUDIES 

returns  —  these  ruins  here.  (3)  In  either  case,  "  Shut  them 
in  "  is  addressed  to  nobody  in  particular,  exactly  as  ^'  let  them 
go ''  might  be,  and  ip^ans  practically  "  let  them  be,"  ^'  let  them 
alone," -^he  ''theM"  being  those  who  struggled  in  those 
^'centuries  of  folly,  noise  and  sin."  '^How  he  esteems  what 
they  struggled  for  is  shown  by  his  mentioning  a  couple  of 
items  and  then  dismissing  it  with  the  words  "and  the  rest." 
In  contrast  to  it  £tif,'.  love  in  the  present  hour  is  best. 

3.  This  belief  in  the  beauty  of  life  in  the  present  hour 
and  this  doctrine  that  love  is  best  are  very  like  so  much  of 
Browning.  This  is  a  good  love-poem.  Of  course,  if 
people  don't  want  love-poems,  they  mustn't  read  them. 
But  if  we're  going  to  have  love-poems  at  all,  let's  have 
them  red-blooded  and  intense.  No  pale-blooded  lov,e-poem 
is  worth  writing  or  worth  reading. 

VII.   "De  Gustibus— "  pp.  238,  239 

Published  in  vol.  II  of  Men  and  Women,  1855. 

1 .  The  title  is  a  part  of  the  Latin  proverb ''  De  gustibus  non 
disputandum  est,"  there  should  be  no  dispute  concerning 
tastes  (literally,  concerning  tastes  it  must  not  be  disputed). 

2.  This  is  a  bit  of  humor.  The  point  is :  if  the  soul 
after  death  keeps  the  same  tastes  it  had  while  in  the  body, 
then  the  ghost  of  each  will  walk  in  the  places  he  used  to 
like  most.  Thus  the  ghost  of  the  lovf r  of  trees  will  walk 
in  an  Enghsh  lane  —  and  then  with' fiiat  alertness  which 
is  always  in  Browning's  best  work,  he  sees  the  ghost  of 
such  a  tree-lov€r  walking  in  the  lane, 

"By  a  cornfield-side  a-flutter  with  poppies," 
and  urges  him  to  get  out  of  the  way,  so  as  not  to  frighten 
the  boy  and  girl  making  love  in  the  hazel  coppice.     Any- 
one accustomed  to  walking  in  English  lanes  knows  how 
often  you  come  upon  the  boy  and  girl  making  love.    We 


"DE  GUSTIBUS—"  -         91 

should  not  miss  Browning's  sympathy  with  them  nor  the 
sadness  of  the  fact  that  youth  is  so  soon  over : 

"And  let  them  pass,  as  they  will  too  soon, 
With  the  bean-flowers'  boon, 
And  the  blackbird's  tune, 
And  May,  and  June  ! " 

r 

3.  Every  ghost  to  the  spot  he  liked  best  before  he  became 
a  ghost.     Therefore,  Robert  Browning's  ghost  will  go  to 

Italy,  for 

"What  I  love  best  in  all  the  world 
Is  a  castle,  preclpice-encurled, 
j^  In^a  gash  of  the  wind-grieved  Apennine." 

So  his  ghost  will  very  likely  be  around  a  place  like  that,  or 

else 

"In  a  sea-side  house  to  the  farther  South." 

We  hardly  need  to  call  attention  to  the  picturesqueness 
of  the  gash  in  the  mountain  and  the  precipice  curling 
about  the  castle,  and  of  each  of  the  details  of  the  scene 
^further  south,  each  detail  chosen  not  for  elegance  but  to 
be  exactly  true  to  Browning's  memory  of  such  places,  and 
ending  with  the  bare-footed  girl  and  her  melons  and  her 
anarchistic  sympathies,  true  to  what  Browning  knew  so 
well  of  many  of  the  Italian  peasants. 

4.  Apropos  of  this  confession,  as  to  whither  his  tastes 
turn,  Browning  breaks  out, 

"Italy,  my  Italy !'» 

And  catching  at  Queen  Mary's  ^  words  about  Calais,  he 

writes : 

"Open  my  heart  and  you  will  see 
Graved  inside  of  it,  'Italy.' 
Such  lovers  old  are  I  and  she  r 
So  it  always  was,  so  shall  ever  be  !" 

» Mary  Tudor,  Queen  of  England  from  1553  to  1558. 


92 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


VIII.  Home-Thoughts,  from  Abroad  ;  Home-Thoughts, 
FROM  the  Sea,  p.  239  "^" 

Published  in  Dramatic  Romances  and  Lyrics,  1845. 
They  were  at  that  time  arranged  under  one  heading  Home 
Thoughts  from  Abroad,  the  first  as  "Oh,  to  be  in  England" 
and  the  other  as  ''Nobly  Cape  St.  Vincent,"  and  between 
them  was  another,  ''Here's  to  Nelson's  Memory,"  which 
is  now  placed  as  the  third  poem  under  Nationality  in 
Drinks  (p.  222). 

1.  Home-Thoughts  from  Abroad  are  the  thoughts  of  an 
Englishman,  who  is  away  where  the  "gaudy  melon-flower" 
is  (probably  in  Italy),  as  the  English  spring  comes  up 
before  his  mind's  eye.  He  describes  it  beautifully.  If 
there  is  one  thing  in  the  poem  finer  than  the  rest,  it  is  the 
reference  to  the  thrush  and  the  exquisite  fancy  as  to  why 
he  sings  as  he  does : 

"That's  the  wise  thrush ;  he  sings  each  song  twice  over, 
Lest  you  should  think  he  never  could  recapture 
The  first  fine  careless  rapture !" 

2.  Home-Thoughts  from  the  Sea  are  the  thoughts  of  an 
Englishman  at  sight  of  Trafalgar,  where  Lord  Nelson  won 
the  great  victory  over  the  combined  fleets  of  France  and 
Spain  on  Oct.  21,  1805,  and  Gibraltar,  which  has  been 
held  since  1704  as  one  of  the  bulwarks  of  the  British  Empire. 
With  fresh  realization  of  what  Trafalgar  and  Gibraltar 
mean,  he  says : 

"Here  and  here  did  England  help  me :  how  can  I  help  England  ?  " 

He  wants  everyone  to  ask  that  question  —  everyone  who 
turns  as  he  turns,  this  evening,  to  God,  "to  praise  and 
pray."  Any  normal  Englishman  ought  to  have  his  patriot- 
ism and  his  religious  thinking  stirred  by  passing  Trafalgar 
and  Gibraltar. 


BY  THE  FIRE-SIDE  93 

"The  first  four  lines  of  Home-Thoughts  from  the  Sea 
are  an  exact  transcript  of  the  scene  which  he  [Browning] 
beheld  from  the  deck  of  the  Norham  Castle  on  the  evening 
of  Friday,  27  April,  1838,  on  his  first  voyage  to  Italy."  ^ 

IX.  By  the  Fire-side,  pp.  245-248 
Published  in  vol.  I  of  Men  and  Women,  1855. 

1.  The  situation  is  just  this:  T^e  man  looks  forward 
to  "life's  November"  —  what  will  he  be  doing  then? 
Why,  he  will  be  sitting  by  the  fire  "deep  in  Greek."  And 
"the  young  ones"  (probably  grandchildren),  seeing  him 
so  absorbed  will  slip  away  to  cut  "from  the  hazels"  a 
mainmast  for  their  "ship."  He  will  forget  his  book, 
hov/ever,  and  his  thoughts  will  go  back  to  that  day  in  the 
Apennines  with  the  woman  he  loved,  when  their  two  lives 
were  poured  together  into  one  life  forevermore.  His 
mind  goes  over  again  each  detail  of  the  scene  and  each 
incident  of  their  walk.  The  poem  is  really  addressed  to 
the  same  woman,  his  wife,  who  sits  opposite  him  at  the 
fireside.  So,  at  the  end,  his  thoughts  come  back  from  that 
event  of  the  past  and  gather  about  her  now.  He  reiterates 
his  intention  of  having  that  crowning  evening  to  think 
about  in  the  autumn  of  his  life. 

2.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the  poem,  from 
first  to  last,  is  altogether  delightful  and  wonderful.  It 
is  useless  to  try  to  make  quotations  from  it,  because  there 
is  no  good  place  to  stop. 

3.  The  place  described  is  probably  a  ggrge  near  the 
Baths  of  Lucca.  The  Brownings  had  spent  the  summer 
at  the  Baths  of  Lucca  in  1849  ^^^  again  in  1853.  The 
wife  sits  yonder,  (stanza  lii), 

"Musing  by  fire-light,  that  great  brow 
And  the  spirit-small  hand  propping  it." 
1  Griffin  and  Minchin,  Life  of  Browning,  p.  1 2  7. 


94  BROWNING  STUDIES 

This  describes  Mrs.  Browning.  That  is  a  curious  fancy 
—  a  "spirit-small  hand,"  i.e.  a  hand  as  small  as  a  spirit 
has.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that  Browning  proposed  to  his 
wife  in  London,  not  in  a  gorge  in  the  Apennines.  But 
it  is  also  undoubtedly  true  that  we  have  here  a  confession 
of  his  love  for  her  and  how  much  it  has  meant  to  him. 
It  is  simply  a  case  of  putting  the  truth  of  his  own  love  into 
a  natural  setting  of  which  he  was  fond,  viz.  this  mountain 
gorge. 

X.  The  Guardian-Angel,  pp.  257,  258 

Published  in  vol.  II  of  Men  and  Women,  1855. 

1.  Subtitle,  A  Picture  at  Fano.  (a)  Fano  is  a  city  at 
the  mouth  of  the  river  Metauro,  in  the  province  of  Urbino- 
and-Pesaro,  on  the  east  coast  of  Italy,  {b)  Robert  Brown- 
ing and  his  wife  visited  Fano  in  the  summer  of  1848  — 
stayed  three  days  there  and  then  went  to  Ancona.  (c)  The 
painting  referred  to  is  by  an  artist  of  Bologna,  named 
Giovanni  Francesco  Barbieri  (1590- 1666),  called  Guercino 
("squint-eyed"),  and  by  this  nickname  he  is  generally 
known,  —  "  Guercino  drew  this  angel "  (stanza  vi) .  (d)  The 
picture  is  on  a  tomb  in  the  church  of  St.  Augustine.  It 
represents  a  little  child  at  prayer,  while  an  angel  stands 
over  him,  with  wings  outspread,  the  left  arm  around  the 
child,  the  right  hand  closing  over  the  child's  clasped  hands, 
(e)  Three  times  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Browning  went  to  this  church 
to  sit  and  look  at  this  picture  (stanza  vii).  (/)  The  poem 
was  evidently  written  at  Ancona  (stanza  viii,  last  line). 

2.  Protestants  have  discarded  the  doctrine  that  there  is 
a  guardian  angel  for  each  one  of  us,  but  Catholics  devoutly 
hold  it.  Browning  feels  keenly  how  beautiful  a  thing  it 
would  be  to  have  that  angel,  when  done  with  the  child, 
step  out  of  the  picture  over  to  him  and  do  for  him  what 


THE  PATRIOT  95 

is  being  done  for  the  child.    Only  Browning  needs  it  more, 
world-worn  as  he  is. 

3.  The  poem  goes  to  pieces  toward  the  end.  The  friend 
spoken  of  in  stanza  vi  is  Alfred  Domett,  who  went  to  New 
Zealand  and  settled  in  1842.  He  is  the  man  called  Waring 
in  the  poem  of  that  title  (pp.  348-351).  The  Wairoa 
(stanza  viii)  is  a  river  in  New  Zealand.  The  last  three 
stanzas  are  distracted  between  Mrs.  Browning  and  Alfred 
Domett,  and  are  a  poor  ending,  diverting  attention  from 
the  point. 

4.  But  the  first  five  stanzas  are  addressed  directly  to 
the  angel  on  the  tomb,  and  are  very  discerning.  They 
come  to  a  good  conclusion  and  should  be  read  as  a  poem 
by  themselves.  There  will  come  times  in  any  tired  man's 
life  when  he  will  deeply  appreciate  them. 

XI.  TSee  Patmot^^„.  333 

Published  in  vol.  I  of  Men  and  Women,  1855. 

1.  The  subtitle  is  ^w  Old  Story.  And  it  certainly  is 
an  old  and  oft-repeated  story  how  men  have  done  their 
utmost  to  help  their  country  and  have  come  to  the  hang- 
man's rope  or  the  headsman's  axe.  The  leaders  of  the 
American  Revolution  of  1776  knew  what  they  were  facing ; 
it  is  related  that  they  said  grimly:  ^'We  must  hang  to- 
gether or  we'll  hang  separately."  Of  course,  George 
Washington  was  a  traitor  to  the  British  crown.  But, 
being  successful  in  leading  the  American  colonists,  he 
became  "the  father  of  his  country."  Furthermore,  there 
are  plenty  of  examples  of  the  fickleness  of  the  populace, 
—  on  a  man's  side  when  he's  winning,  deserting  him  when 
he  fails.    This  also  is  an  old  story. 

2.  In  the  case  described  in  the  poem,  a  man  has  in  whole- 
souled  devotion  given  himself  for  his  country,  —  at  first 


96  BROWNING  STUDIES 

successfully,  attended  by  great  applause  at  his  entry  into 
the  city,  but  later  the  tide  has  turned  against  him  and 
now  he  is  on  his  way  out  to  be  hanged.  Very  naturally 
the  contrast  is  bitter  in  his  thoughts,  between  how  he 
entered  exactly  a  year  ago  and  how  he  goes  out  to-day. 
And  the  contrast  could  not  easily  be  better  described  than 
Browning  does  it.    A  year  ago, 

"It  was  roses,  roses,  all  the  way, 

With  myrtle  mixed  in  my  path  like  mad," 

and  house-roofs  loaded  with  people,  church-spires  flaming 
with  flags,  the  sound  of  so  many  bells  that  they  filled  the 
air  like  a  mist,  and  the  old  walls  rocking  with  the  crowd 
and  their  cheering.  If  he  had  asked  them  to  give  him  the 
sun  from  the  skies,  they  would  have  agreed  at  once  to 
take  it  down  and  give  it  to  him,  and  immediately  would 
have  asked  him  what  else  he  wanted.  He  realizes  now  that 
it  was  he  who  leaped  at  the  sun  to  get  it  and  give  it  to  the 
people,  i.e.  he  tried  to  do  for  them  a  great  thing,  tried  to 
bring  great  blessing  to  their  Hves,  and  was'  not  able  to 
reach  it.  Now,  a  year  to  the  very  day  from  that  temporary 
triumph,  he  is  walking  through  the  streets  to  his  execution. 
The  crowd  are  on  their  way  to  the  scaffold  at  the  Shambles' 
Gate.  A  few  with  palsy  cannot  go,  but  sit  at  the  windows 
to  see  him  pass.  It  rains,  and  the  rope  cuts  his  wrists 
tied  behind  him.  Anyone  who  cares  to  flings  a  stone  at 
him.  He  thinks  by  the  feeling  that  he  is  bleeding  at  a 
wound  in  the  forehead,  where  a  stone  has  hit  him.  Sharply 
the  two  scenes  come  to  his  mind  —  a  year  ago  and  now : 

"Thus  I  entered,  and  thus  I  go !" 

"Well,"  he  thinks,  "cases  have  been  known  where  a  man 
in  a  triumph,  overcome  by  the  excitement,  has  dropped 
dead.    If  I  had  died  that  day  a  year  ago  and  had  gone 


THE  LAST  RIDE   TOGETHER  97 

up  before  God  fresh  from  the  approbation  of  men,  I  might 
have  been  told  by  God  that  I  had  been  paid  by  the  world 
and  might  have  been  questioned  by  God:  'What  dost 
thou  owe  me?'  Now  surely  I  have  not  been  paid  by  the 
world.  I  have  done  the  best  I  could  for  my  countrymen 
and  what  I  get  is  a  hanging."  The  balance  is  on  the  other 
side  of  the  account : 

"  'Tis  God  shall  repay :  I  am  safer  so." 

''So,"  i.e.  safer  trusting  God's  award  than  men's. 

This  paraphrase  purposely  avoids  quoting  more  com- 
pletely the  phrases  in  the  poem.  They  are  full  of  extraor- 
dinary vividness.  This  patriot  is  a  fine  figure  of  a  man 
who  has  held  unfalteringly  to  his  ideal  and  is  therefore 
ready  to  stand  unashamed  before  God. 

XII.  The  Last  Ride  Together,  pp.  352,  353 

Published  in  vol.  I  of  Men  and  Women,  1855. 

I.  The  circumstances  are  plain:  The  lover  has  been 
rejected.  He  accepts  it  philosophically,  and  asks  the 
lady  to  take  just  one  more  ride  with  him,  which  she  agrees 
to  do.  He  helps  her  on  her  horse,  (this  is  the  point  in 
stanza  iii,  cf.  the  last  two  lines  when  he  is  helping  her  on), 
and  they  begin  to -ride.  He  doesn't  worry  about  the  fact 
that  she  has  rejected  his  suit,  nor  about  the  fact  that  he's 
never  going  to  ride  with  her  again.  Enough  that  he's 
riding  with  her  now,  and  he  makes  the  most  of  it.  What's 
the  use  in  spoiHng  the  present  hour  by  thinking  about 
what  has  been  and  what  is  to  be.  The  main  point  is  that 
he's  riding  with  her,  and  that's  better  for  him  than  soldiers' 
glory  or  artists'  fame.  He  has  this  one  chance,  and  (stanza 
n) 

/'Who  knows  but  the  world  may  end  to-night  ?  " 


98  BROWNING  STUDIES 

And  as  they  ride,  it  seems  to  him  that  Heaven  may  be  only 

(stanza  x) 

.  "The  instant  made  eternity." 

Such  a  perpetuation  of  this  instant  would  be  quite  satisfac- 
tory to  him. 


The  poem  is  one  of  Browning^s  best  e^rressions  of 
his  belief  in  making  the  most  of  the  hour  that  now  is. 
It  is  also  one  of  the  richest  of  his  short  poems  in  melody 
and  beauty. 

XIII.  A  Grammarian's  Funeral,  pp.  366-368 

PubUshed  in  vol.  II  of  Men  and  Women,  1855. 

1.  This  is  a  piece  of  rare  and  curious  humor. 

2.  The  circumstances  are  plain : 

a.  The  time  is  indicated  by  the  words  Browning  has 
put  under  the  title :  ''Shortly  after  the  Revival  of  Learning 
in  Europe," 

b.  A  Renaissance  scholar,  whose  study  has  run  chiefly 
to  Greek,  is  now  dead,  and  is  borne  on  the  shoulders  of 
his  students  to  burial  on  a  high  mountain,  the  only  fit 
place  for  burying  a  man  of  such  high  thinking  and  such 
high  aspirations.  The  poem  is  spoken  by  the  leader  of 
the  students,  as  they  go  on:  he  begins  while  they  are 
still  on  the  plain,  continues  as  they  come  into  a  city  on 
the  mountain-side  and  march  through  its  market-place, 
still  continues  as  they  wind  up  the  narrow  way  beyond, 
and  ceases  speaking  soon  after  they  reach  "the  platform"  ^ 
on  the  summit. 

c.  The  poem  consists  of  eulogy  of  their  dead  teacher, 

1  p.  368, 1.  3,  "  Well,  here's  the  platform."  What  is  this  platform ?  Is  it 
something  built  up  on  which  the  body  is  to  rest  permanently,  in  a  sarcoph- 
agus? Or  is  it  a  temporary  structure  on,  which  they  are  to  hold  a  funeral 
service?    Or  does  it  mean  simply  the  level  spot  on  top  of  the  mountain? 


A  GRAMMARIAN'S  FUNERAL 


99 


wise  and  pithy  sayings  about  life  (chiefly  suggested  by 
his  attitude  toward  life),  and  parenthetical  directions  and 
exhortations  to  the  bearers  and  other  students. 

3.  The  poem  gives  an  accurate  reflection  of  the  interest- 
ing mixture  of  pedantry,  real  sense,  and  grotesque  exaggera- 
tion among  these  first  students  in  the  Revival  of  Learning. 
Throughout  the  poem  the  realization  is  keen  of  the  pitiful 
disproportion  between  the  work  a  scholar  puts  in  and  the 
visible  results  achieved.    This  must  always  be  so. 

4.  Notice  some  words : 
a.  Academic  terms : 

P.  367,  1.  16,  he  gomned  him,  became  a  student,  put  on  a 
scholar's  gown.  Such  was  the  custom  in  the  Middle 
Ages  and  the  Renaissance.  Whatever  use  of  distinctive 
academic  dress  survives  in  our  day  owes  its  origin  in  some 
sort  to  this  old  custom. 

1.  26,  the  comment,  commentary  written  in  the  margin  of 
manuscripts.  Learning  is  spoken  of  here  figuratively 
as  a  book,  and  to  go  thoroughly  one  must  read  not  only 
the  text  but  the  marginal  comment. 

h.   Medical  terms : 

P.  367,  1.  30,  queasy,  nauseated,  —  used  of  his  mind's 
devouring  everything  nor  ever  getting  too  much  —  never 
getting  sick  of  it.  (Not  a  strictly  medical  term  as  the  next 
one  is.) 

1.  52,  Calculus,  regular  medical  term  for  stone,  whether 
in  the  liver,  kidney,  bladder,  or  any  other  organ  of  the 
body.  The  word  is  more  commonly  met  in  the  plural 
calculi. 

1.  54,  Tussis,  a  cough. 

1.  61,  soul-hydr optic.  The  more  common  word  is  hydropic 
(direct  from  Latin  hydropicus,  which  in  turn  comes  directly 
from  the  Greek),  but  hydr optic  is  found  (made  from  English 


ICX)  BROWNING  STUDIES 

hydropsy,  erroneously  following  epilepsy,  epileptic,  and  the 
like).  Hydroptic,  dropsical.  The  point  is  that  in  some 
dropsical  conditions  there  is  much  thirst,  and  this  man's 
soul  is  as  thirsty  as  if  it  had  the  dropsy. 

c,  Greek  words : 

P.  367,  1.  95,  Hoti,  OTL,  conjunction,  that,  because. 
1.  96,  Oun,  ow,  conjunction,  then,  therefore. 

P.  368,  1.  I,  the  enclitic  De,  ^e,  inseparable  unaccented 
particle,  —  not  to  be  confused  with  the  word  Se  which 
means  but. 

d.  Why  does  Browning  use  such  words  as  these  weVe 
been  speaking  of  ?  Of  course,  to  give  atmosphere  and 
color  to  the  poem.  -^^ 

5.  According  to  the  poem,  the  reason  why  the  dead 
scholar  gave  himself  so  unreservedly  to  his  work  and 
denied  himself  the  immediate  comfort  and  good  of  life 
was  because  he  wanted  the  greater  good,  the  ''far  gain.'* 
And  he  believed  that  he  would  not  fail  of  that,  because  he 
had  confidence  that  death  would  not  be  the  end : 

"Others  mistrust  and  say,  'But  time  escapes: 
Live  now  or  never ! ' 
He  said,  'What's  time?    Leave  Now  for  dogs  and  apes ! 
Man  has  Forever. ' " 

XIV.  Porphyria's  Lover,  p.  375 

First  printed  in  The  Monthly  Repository  ^  in  1836,^ 
under  the  title  Porphyria  and  over  the  signature  "Z." 
In  the  same  number  of  The  Monthly  Repository  appeared 
Johannes  Agricola  (now  called  Johannes  Agricola  in  Medi- 
tation).   In  Dramatic  Lyrics,  1842,  these  two  poems  were 

1  Edited  by  Browning's  friend  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Fox,  who  had  hailed  Pauline 
with  a  long  notice  in  1833. 

2  New  series,  vol.  X,  pp.  43, 44. 


PORFHYRIA'S  LOVER      '  lOI 

yoked  together,  without  individual  titles,  under  one  head- 
ing Madhouse  Cells;  Johannes  Agricola  was  No  I,  and 
Porphyria  No.  II.  In  the  edition  of  his  works  in  1863, 
Browning  abandoned  the  heading  Madhouse  Cells.  Jo- 
hannes Agricola  in  Meditation  now  stands  among  Men 
and  Women,  p.  445. 

I.  Porphyria's  lover  loves  her  desperately,  but  is  evi- 
dently not  her  social  equal  (11.  46-50)  and  is  not  sure  that 
his  love  is  requited  (11.  57-60)  and  is  sullen  and  morbid. 
But  on  this  evening  she  has  left  the  gay  feast  (1.  52)  and 
has  come  to  him  through  the  rain,  has  stirred  up  the  fire,  ' 
and  then  has  laid  aside  her  wet  cloak  and  shawl  and  gloves 
and  has  untied  her  hat  and  let  her  damp  hair  fall,  and 
then  has  sat  down  beside  him  and  called  him,  but  he 
wouldn't  answer  (1.  40).  So  she  put  his  arm  about  her 
waist  and  then  made  her  shoulder  bare  and  put  her  yellow 
hair  out  of  the  way  and  made  his  cheek  lie  on  her  shoulder, 
^er  hair  falKng  again  over  his  face,  she  meantime  murmur- 
ing how  she  loved  him.  This  was  too  much  for  his  dis- 
tracted brain.  He  goes  *'out  of  his  head."  This  moment 
is  the  fulfillment  of  everything  to  him,  and  the  insane 
thought  occurs  to  him  that  he  can  keep  it  perpetually  so 
by  killing  her  and  keeping  her  there  in  that  position.  ^  So 
he  carries  out  the  plan  by  twisting  her  long  yellow  hair 
into  a  string  and  strangling  her  with  it.  Only  he  finds 
that  positions  have  to  be  reversed  somewhat  and  his 
shoulder  now  supports  her  head.  It  is  next  morning 
when  he  tells  about  it  (1.  84),  but  he  has  no  sense  that 
he  has  committed  a  crime.^  The  only  thing  that  bothers 
him  is  the  possibility  that  she  may  have  suffered,  and  he 
repeats  that  she  felt  no  pain  (U.  66,  67).  The  last  line  of 
the  poem,  quoted  by  some  as  if  so  full  of  meaning,  is  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than  an  addition  to  show  ^tlio  shattered  . 


I02  ♦  BROWNING  STUDIES 

condition  of  his  mind  —  he  wonders  that  God  hasn't  said 
anything  about  it. 

2.  This  poem  may  not  be  a  pleasant  thing  nor  of  comfort 
to  any  reader.  But  as  a  bit  of  literary  art  it  is  remarkable, 
to  say  the  least.  Its  chief  importance,  however,  is  as  a  study 
comprehending  much  in  little,  in  the  line  of  abnormal  psy- 
chology. 

XV.  May  and  Death,  p.  516 

First  pubUshed  in  The  Keepsake,  1857.  Then  included 
in  Dramatis  Personce,  1864. 

1.  The  friend  ''Charles''  in  the  poem  is  Browning's 
cousin  James  Silverthorne. 

2.  To  read  the  poem,  one  would  at  first  suppose  that 
the  matter  involved  was  not  simply  the  death  of  a  man 
who  had  been  a  friend  from  childhood  up,  but  rather  a 
matter  of  desperate  love  between  man  and  woman,  so 
extreme  are  the  statements.  In  stanza  i,  the  poet  wishes 
that,  when  his  friend  died,  three-quarters  of  the  dehghtful 
things  of  spring  had  died  too,  and,  as  far  as  he  is  con- 
cerned, he  wouldn't  mind  if  the  other  quarter  had  died 
also  —  nothing  of  the  beauty  of  spring  left.  He  rebukes 
himself  in  stanza  11,  and  realizes  that  there  are  many  who 
ought  to  have  opportunity  to  enjoy  what  he  and  Charles 
enjoyed  together.  So,  amending  his  wholesale  wish  in 
the  succeeding  stanzas,  he  is  in  favor  of  having  the  spring 
at  its  best  for  the  sake  of  others,  only  he  thinks  they  wouldn't 
miss  one  plant  which  was  so  much  in  the  woods  where  he 
walked  with  Charles,  if  that  grew  no  more  again.  That 
plant  reminds  him  so  of  his  friend's  death  that  the  spot  of 
red  on  its  leaves  comes  from  his  heart,  that's  all. 

3.  The  plant  referred  to  is  the  spotted  persicaria,  Poly- 
gonum persicaria,  which  has  purple  stains,  varying  in  size 

f  •.  and.yiy5i^4s%  on  its  leaves. 


MAY  AND  DEATH 


103 


4.  The  expression  in  the  early  part  of  the  poem,  so 
disproportionate  to  the  grief  which  we  would  naturally 
expect  in  the  poet  at  loss  of  his  cousin  and  friend,  is 
consistent  with  Browning's  impulsive  nature.  So  also  is 
that  at  the  end,  as  to  how  much  the  sight  of  this  plant 
pains  him. 


SOME     OF     THE     SHORT     POEMS     PUBLISHED 
AFTER  MRS.  BROWNING'S  DEATH 

I.  Confessions,  p.  516 

Published  in  Dramatis  PersoncB,  1864. 

1.  The  poem  is  very  human  and  very  ^'Browningesque." 
The  man  is  dying,  and  the  clergyman  is  by  him  with  the 
conventional  line  of  talk.  But  to  the  dying  man  Hfe  is 
good  and  the  world  is  no  vale  of  tears.  Instead  of  being 
in  a  properly  solemn  frame  of  mind,  he  finds  his  memory 
running  back  to  light  and  color  in  the  days  gone  by,  to 
stolen  interviews  with  the  girl  he  loved.  His  dying  fancy 
makes  up  a  picture  of  the  scene  from  the  curtain  and  the 
medicine  bottles. 

2.  The  poem  is  exceedingly  refreshing.  Moreover,  it 
is  full  of  the  subtle  thirst  for  life  and  love. 

II.  Prospice,  pp.  516,  517 

First  printed  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  June,  1864.^ 
The  poem  appeared  in  Browning's  volume  Dramatis 
PersoncB  the  same  year. 

I.  The  poem  was  written  in  the  autumn  of  1861,  — _tiie_ 
autumn  following  Mrs.  Browning's  death.     It  is  out  oi_ 
the  innermost  of  Browning's  soul.     He  looks  upon  death 
as  the  climax,  the  best  and  crowning  chance  to  prove 

1  Vol.  XIII,  p.  694.  Cf.  Dowden,  Robert  Browning,  London,  1904,  pp. 
274, 275. 

104 


PROSPICE  105 

what  he's  made  of,  —  one  splendid  consummate  fight  at 
the  last,  and  then  the  peace,  the  light,  and  clasping  Elizabeth 
Barrett  Browning's  soul  —  that  will  be  enough. 

2._The  dramatic  intensity  of  the  poem  should  have  a 
first  place  in  speaking  of  it.  The  description  of  the  near 
approach  to  the  last  struggle  and  of  the  coming  of  the 
calm  after  the  struggle  is  very  dramatic. 

3.   The  following  notes  may  not  come  amiss : 

a.  The  title  Prospice  means  Look  forward,  or  strictly, 
Look  thou  forward,  —  imperative  singular  of  the  verb 
prospicere. 

b.  P.  516,  1.  71,  to  feel  the  fog  in  my  throat  —  one  needs 
to  spend  a  winter  in  England  to  appreciate  this  expression 
fully.  It  accurately  describes  the  sensation  you  sometimes 
have  in  London  or  Oxford  —  you  certainly  feel  the  fog  in 
your  throat. 

c.  V.  $iy,l.  2,the  place,  the  place  where  he  must  struggle 
with  Death,  —  the  whole  being  an  old  figure,  the  journey 
of  life.  When  the  time  comes,  he  must  approach  the 
place  where  Death  waits  in  the  fog  and  mist  and  snow, 
where  the  storm  is  thickest.  ''The  foe,"  "the  Arch  Fear" 
(chief  Fear,  greatest  Fear),  is  Death,  but  there  is  no  es- 
cape, the  strong  man  must  pass  that  way. 

d.  But  Browning  has  no  thought  of  escape  nor  of  defeat. 
There  stands  between  him  and  ''the  reward  of  it  all"  only 
"one  fight  more,  the  best  and  the  last."  Guerdon  (1.  9), 
requital,  reward. 

e.  He  has  no  wish  to  die  an  easy  painless  death,  e.g.  to 
die  in  his  sleep  as  so  many  wish.  He  would  hate  to  have 
Death  spare  him  —  bandage  his  eyes  and  let  him  creep 
past  (11.  13,  14). 

/.  No,  he  wants  to  die  splendidly  in  the  fiercest  struggle 
like  the  heroes  of  old.    And  if  he  hasn't  suffered  enough 


Io6  BROWNING  STUDIES 

in  his  life,  if  he  hasn't  had  enough  of  pain,  darkness,  and 
cold,  let  them  pile  it  on  now  and  he'll  take  it,  so  that  the 
account  will  be  square.  He  wants  to  endure  *'all  that's 
coming  to  him."  This  is  the  meaning  of  ''pay  glad  life's 
arrears  of  pain,  darkness  and  cold." 

g.  *'For  sudden  the  worst  turns  the  best  to  the  brave," 
(but  only  to  the  brave).  For  "the  black  minute,"  the 
intensest  of  the  strife,  comes  to  an  end,  and  he  passes  out 
on  the  other  side  of  storm  and  night.  And  all  the  rage 
of  the  elements  and  the  raving  of  fiend-voices  around 
him  "shall  dwindle,  shall  blend,"  —  note  how  they  grad- 
ually die  down  and  are  transformed  and  then  gradually 
come  out  again  — 

"Shall  change,  shall  become  first  a  peace  out  of  pain, 
Then  a  light,  then  thy  breast, 
O  thou  soul  of  my  soul ! " 

And  he  cares  not  what  comes  after  that  —  he  can  leave 

the  rest  with  God : 

"I  shall  clasp  thee  again, 
And  with  God  be  the  rest !" 

4.  You  will  look  far  before  you  find  a  finer  piece  of  work 
than  Browning's  Prospice,  in  so  few  lines,  with  such  dra- 
matic power,  such  courage,  such  love,  such  confidence  in 
ImmortaHty.  We  suggest  that  you  commit  this  poem 
to  memory,  whether  you  commit  anything  else  of  Brown- 
ing's or  not. 

III.  A  Face,  p.  518 

Published  in  Dramatis  Personce,  1864. 

1.  It  is  a  girl's  face  as  the  poet  would  have  it  done  on 
canvas.  Both  the  drawing  and  the  coloring  are  with  care 
and  artistic  taste. 

2.  CorreggiOj  born  1494,  died  1534,  eminent  Italian 
painter. 


A  LIKENESS  107 

IV.  A  Likeness,  pp.  518,  519 

Published  in  Dramatis  Personce,  1864. 

I.  A  Likeness  is  a  genial  poem,  the  point  being  how 
little  a  visitor  knows  the  associations  that  go  with  things 
he  notices  when  he's  calling.  In  describing  how  a  visitor 
acts  toward  these  things  and  how  he  blunders  and  how 
we  "squirm,''  it  is  brisk  and  incisive. 

a.  The  first  example  is  a  portrait  hanging  in  a  room  where 
tea  is  taken  — 

"And  the  wife  clinks  tea-things  under." 

Her  cousin's  innocent  remark  as  he  looks  at  the  portrait, 
the  wife's  spiteful  rejoinder,  her  cousin's  further  remark, 
while  her  husband  is  extremely  self-conscious  and  aware 
of  the  discomfort  of  his  corns !  —  all  this  is  a  pretty  good 
reflection  of  human  nature. 

b.  The  next  example  is  a  picture  in  a  bachelor's  quarters, 
with  all  the  things  a  sporty  bachelor  accumulates  —  in- 
cluding a  cast  of  the  fist  of  the  boxer  from  whom  he  has 
taken  lessons,  "the  Tipton  Slasher"^  (a  man  known  to 
the  history  of  fistic  sport),  pla3dng-cards  which  have  been 
used  to  shoot  at  and  are  preserved  as  records  of  marks- 
manship, a  satin  shoe  (with  a  history!)  irreverently  used 
for  a  cigar-case,  the  horns  of  a  chamois  shot  in  the  Chablais 
in  Savoy,  a  print  of  Rarey  (a  famous  horse-trainer.  Cruiser 
being  probably  one  of  his  horses),  and  one  of  Sayers  (a 
real  boxing  champion),  and  a  set  of  Rabelais  in  small 
volumes.  But  the*  main  thing  that  concerns  us  is  that 
there's  also  a  portrait  of  some  girl.  The  visitor  guesses 
it's  Jane  Lamb,   and  guesses  wrong.     His  remarks  are 

*  The  parenthetical  quotations  with  which  Browning  accompanies  many 
of  the  things  mentioned  are,  of  course,  explanatory  remarks  by  the  owner  of 
the  "spoils." 


Io8  BROWNING  STUDIES 

only  in  careless  jest  and  exaggeration,  but  we  can  readily 
imagine  how  with  every  word  he's  ''getting  in  wrong." 

c.  The  third  example  is  an  etching  which  the  speaker 
owns.  He  tells,  in  a  breezy  way,  of  his  friend's  visit  and 
of  his  emotions  when  the  visitor  admires  this  etching,  and 
how  he  puts  him  off  and  presents  him  a  piece  of  Volpato's 
(eminent  engraver,  1 738-1803).  He  realizes  that  if  his 
visitor  only  knew  —  if  he  would  only  say  the  right  thing 
to  meet  what  he  himself  thinks  in  connection  with  the 
etching,  he'd  be  so  carried  away  he  might  give  it  to  him, 
making  a  ''bluff"  that  it  is  only  a  duplicate.  Marc  An- 
tonios,  etchings  by  the  famous  engraver  Marc  Antonio 
Raymondi  (1487  or  '88-1539).  Festina  lente,  literally 
hasten  slowly,  make  haste  slowly,  i.e.  ''hold  on." 

2 .  The  interest  in  the  poem  is  not  only  literary  but  psycho- 
logical. 

V.    SUMMUM  BONUM,   p.    1 295 

Published  in  Asolando,  Browning's  last  volume,  which 
appeared  on  the  day  he  died,  Dec.  12,  1889.  The  remain- 
ing short  poems  discussed  here  were  in  the  same  volume. 

1.  Summum  Bonum  means  the  chief  good,  the  greatest 
or  ultimate  good.  It  is  a  matter  much  discussed  from 
classical  times  —  what  is  the  Summum  Bonum? 

2.  Browning's  poem  is  an  intense  love-poem,  con- 
centrating the  excellence  and  beauty  of  things  into  the 
smallest  compass  and  then  putting  forward  something 
that  beats  all  that,  viz.  love  —  the  truth  and  trust 

"In  the  kiss  of  one  girl." 

3.  "The  bag  of  one  bee"  is,  of  course,  the  bag  in  which 
the  bee  carries  the  honey  to  his  hive. 

4.  The  poem  is  a  good  example  of  climax,  everything 
in  it  culminating  upon  the  last  line, 

"In  the  kiss  of  one  girl." 


SPECULATIVE  IO9 

VI.  Speculative,  p.  1295 

Published  in  Asolando,  Dec.  12,  1889. 

1.  There's  always  speculation  as  to  the  question:  If 
the  personalities  of  human  beings  do  (endure  beyond 
death,  what  are  the  conditions  under  which  they  exist? 
If,  say,  the  good  are  in  Heaven,  what  is  that  place  or 
state  like? 

2.  Browning  answers  that  for  him  a  piece  of  the  old 
life  on  earth  will  be  good  enough,  exactly  as  it  was.  It 
will  be  Heaven  if  only  he  and  Mrs.  Browning  can  meet 
and  part  no  more. 

3.  It  seems  as  if  the  meaning  of  the  lines  would  be  plainer 
with  a  different  punctuation.  Yet  as  they  stand  no  one 
will  miss  their  meaning.  The  language  is  very  condensed. 
The  first  stanza  says  that  "others^may  need  new  Ufe  in 
Heaven"  —  everything  new  —  Man  with  new  mind.  Na- 
ture with  new  light.  Art  with  new  opportunity  and  new 
fulfillment.  In  sharp  contrast  to  all  this  desire  for  new- 
ness is  Browning's  prayer  that  past  minutes  of  the  earth 
may  return  and  remain,  that  the  old  earth-life  may  come 
back  ("enmesh  us''  —  notice  the  word),  even  as  it  was 
before  with  him  and  Mrs.  Browning.  For  the  last  lines 
are  addressed  to  her,  and  this  poem  is  out  of  the  depths 
of  Browning's  love  for  her. 

4.  It  is  better  not  to  begin  to  say  what  I  think  of  this 
poem,  lest  I  say  too  much.  I  do  not  want  to  say  extreme 
things.  The  poem  focuses  in  one  point  of  Kght  several 
of  the  fundamental  thoughts  which  we  see  so  often  in 
Browning's  writings.  You  will  not  find  many  things  of 
ten  Hnes  quite  equal  to  it  in  your  rummaging  the  litera- 
tures of  the  world.  Just  for  the  sheer  joy  of  going  over 
the  words  again,  here  it  is : 


no  BROWNING  STUDIES 

Others  may  need  new  life  in  Heaven  — 
Man,  Nature,  Art  —  made  new,  assume ! 

Man  with  new  mind  old  sense  to  leaven, 
Nature  —  new  light  to  clear  old  gloom, 

Art  that  breaks  bounds,  gets  soaring-room. 

I  shall  pray :  "Fugitive  as  precious  — 
Minutes  which  passed,  —  return,  remain  ! 

Let  earth's  old  life  once  more  enmesh  us. 
You  with  old  pleasure,  me  —  old  pain, 

So  we  but  meet  nor  part  again  ! " 

VII.  Rephan,  pp.  1314,  1315 

Published  in  the  same  volume  with  the  two  poems  just 
discussed. 

1.  The  matter  of  the  poem  is  very  akin  to  the  centre  of 
Browning's  way  of  looking  at  things.  His  belief  in  the 
good  of  imperfection  and  the  good  of  struggle  makes  him 
keenly  sympathize  with  the  being  on  whom  all  the  per- 
fection of  the  star  of  the  god  Rephan  grows  stale  and 
cloying  and  who  is  stirred  by  a  desire  to  struggle  through 
failure,  suffering,  and  sin  toward  higher  things  and  is 
therefore  told  by  a  voice, 

"Thou  art  past  Rephan,  thy  place  be  Earth !" 

2.  Browning  himself  says  in  a  note  (printed  at  bottom 
of  first  column,  p.  13 14)  that  the  poem  was  "suggested 
by  a  very  early  recollection  of  a  prose  story  by  the  noble 
woman  and  imaginative  writer,  Jane  Taylor,  of  Norwich." 
As  Dr.  Berdoe  ^  and  the  editors  of  the  Globe  Edition  point 
out,  Jane  Taylor  lived  at  Ongar,  not  Norwich.  Her  story 
was  entitled  How  it  Strikes  a  Stranger  and  was  in  vol.  I  of  her 
work  entitled  The  Contributions  of  Q.  Q.  Naturally  enough, 
Browning's  poem  bears  very  little  resemblance   to   Jane 

^Browning  Cyclopadia,  ed.  191 2,  p.  383. 


REVERIE  III 

Taylor's  story  which  he  recalled  across  so  many  years.    He 
got  from  it  only  the  word  Rephan  and  a  suggestion. 

VIII.  Reverie,  pp.  13 15-13 17 

Published  in  the  same  volume  as  the  preceding. 

I.  The  poem  is  a  Confession  of  Faith  that  somewhere, 
sometime,  we  shall  come  to  self-fulfillment  in  harmony 
with  the  universe,  —  strong  buoyant  faith  that  when 
rightly  seen  Power  and  Love  are  one. 

a.  The  life  of  the  race  is  repeated  in  epitome  in  the 
life  of  the  individual.  Therefore,  the  life  of  the  individual 
and  the  life  of  the  race  shall  both  find  fulfillment  according 
to  the  same  law :  ^  ' 

"I  for  my  race  and  me 

Shall  apprehend  life's  law : 
In  the  legend  of  man  shall  see 

Writ  large  what  small  I  saw 
In  my  life's  tale :  both  agree." 

b.  Naturally  progress  will  be  from  near  to  far,  from 
within  outward,  —  this  is  the  key  to  the  fulfillment :  ^ 

"How  but  from  near  to  far 

Should  knowledge  proceed,  increase? 

Try  the  clod  ere  test  the  star  ! 
Bring  our  inside  strife  to  peace 

Ere  we  wage,  on  the  outside,  war  !" 

So  he  looks  into  his  own  life  which  has  been  lived  in  the 
presence  of  infinite  Power  which  seems  at  strife  with  Love. 

c.  Anyway,  life  is  a  great  becoming,  a  splendid  adventure : ' 

"Then  life  is  —  to  wake  not  sleep, 

Rise  and  not  rest,  but  press 
From  earth's  level  where  blindly  creep 

Things  perfected,  more  or  less, 
To  the  heaven's  height,  far  and  steep." 

1  P.  1315,  U.  74-78.        *  P.  131S,  11.  84-88.        '  P.  1317,  U.  53-57. 


112  BROWNING  STUDIES 

d.  And  Browning  believes  that,  although  Power  in  the 
universe  is  so  evident  and  Love  dimly  shown,  yet  at  last 
we  shall  find  that  ^' Power  is  Love :"  ^ 

"I  have  faith  such  end  shall  be : 

From  the  first,  Power  was  —  I  knew. 
Life  has  made  clear  to  me 

That,  strive  but  for  closer  view, 
Love  were  as  plain  to  see." 

2.  The  poem  opens  and  closes  with  the  same  high  note, 
that  "there  shall  dawn  a  day,"  no  matter  when,  no  matter 
where  —  a  day  when  Power  shall  have  its  way  in  him  and 
he  will  find  life's  fulfillment. 

IX.  Epilogue,  p.  13 17 

This  is  the  Epilogue  to  AsolandOj  the  volume  published 
the  day  Browning  died. 

1 .  It  has  been  well  said  that  even  if  Browning  had  known 
that  these  were  to  be  his  last  words  to  the  world,  he  could 
not  have  given  a  more  intimate  and  more  vital  message 
than  in  Reverie  and  in  this  Epilogue. 

2.  The  Epilogue  especially  is  a  pointblank  confession 
of  what  he  is  and  how  he  wishes  to  be  esteemed.  When 
he  is  dead,  people  will  very  likely  mistake  him,  as  is  usually 
the  case.  How  will  his  friends  think  of  him,  when  they 
are  thinking  in  the  night?  Are  they  going  to  think  of 
him  as  lying  low,  imprisoned  by  Death,  and  pity  him? 
In  life  he  was  none  of  "  the  slothful,  the  mawkish,  the  un- 
manly "  —  he  was  not  like  "  the  aimless,  helpless,  hope- 
less.''    Nay  rather,  he  was 

"One  who  never  turned  his  back  but  marched  breast  forward, 
Never  doubted  clouds  would  break, 

ip.i3i7,U.  63-67. 


EPILOGUE  TO  ASOLANDO 


"3 


Never  dreamed,  though  right  were  worsted,  wrong  would  triumph, 
Held  we  fall  to  rise,  are  baffled  to  fight  better. 
Sleep  to  wake." 

And  he  wants  them  to  think  of  him  "in  the  bustle  of  man's 
work  time,"  as  not  dead  but  alive,  —  struggling  and  pro- 
gressing in  the  unseen  world  as  he  did  here.  Notice  the 
contrast  between  thinking  of  him  "at  the  midnight"  and 
"at  noonday,"  in  the  "sleep time"  and  in  the  "work time." 

3.  A  word  is  needed  as  to  the  last  stanza:  "the  un- 
seen" to  be  greeted  with  a  cheer  is  Browning  after  death. 
This  is  plain  from  the  pronoun  "him"  which  refers  to 
"the  unseen."  "Breast  and  back  as  either  should  be," 
breast  and  back  each  in  its  place,  not  with  breast  where 
back  should  be,  i.e.  not  turned  to  retreat.  "Strive  and 
thrive !  .  .  .     Speed,  —  fight  on  etc."  all  after  cry. 

4.  The  poem  is  quite  beyond  praise.  It  has  too  much 
reaHty  in  it  to  be  subject  to  treatment  as  literature.  It 
provokes  the  finest  admiration  for  the  man  who  wrote  it. 
One  evening  just  before  his  last  illness  Browning  was 
reading  the  proofs  of  Asolando  with  his  sister  and  daughter- 
in-law.  And  when  he  read  the  third  stanza  of  the  Epilogue, 
he  stopped  and  said:  "It  almost  looks  like  bragging  to 
say  this,  and  as  if  I  ought  to  cancel  it ;  but  it's  the  simple 
truth ;  and  as  it's  true,  it  shall  stand."  ^  It  will  be  a  sad 
day  for  any  of  us  when  we  do  not  feel  like  bowing  in  the 
presence  of  such  a  personality  as  speaks  through  this 
Epilogue. 

1  Substance  of  incident  related  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  of  Feb.  i,  1890. 
Browning's  words  are  quoted  exactly  as  reprinted  from  the  Gazette  by 
Berdoe,  Browning  Cyclopadia,  ed.  191 2,  pp.  153, 154. 


VI 

THREE  OF  THE  LONGER  POEMS  NOW  STAND- 
ING AMONG  THE  DRAMATIC  ROMANCES 

Though  now  standing  under  the  head  of  Dramatic 
Romances,  no  one  of  these  three  poems  was  originally 
published  in  Dramatic  Romances  and  Lyrics  of  1845.^ 

I.  The  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,  pp.  353-356 

Published  in  Dramatic  Lyrics,  1842. 

1.  Its  subtitle  is  A  Child's  Story,  and  there  is  added 
Written  for,  and  inscribed  to,  W.  M.  the  Younger,  i.e.  written 
for  Wilham  Macready,  Jr.,  son  of  the  great  actor  William 
Macready. 

2.  People  who  think  Browning  is  so  hard  have  never 
read  The  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,  or,  if  they've  read  it, 
don't  know  it  is  Browning's.  Children  read  it  and  enjoy 
it  hugely,  know  it  by  heart  and  repeat  it  with  gusto.^  But 
when  I  say,  "Well,  Browning's  not  so  hard  —  see  how  the 
children  enjoy  his  Pie  J  Piper,''  then  comes  the  exclamation, 
"Oh!  did  Browning  write  The  Pied  Piper?" 

3.  A  few  notes : 

a.  Pied,  variegated  with  spots  of  different  colors.  See 
description  of  his  coat  (v)  and  his  scarf  (vi). 

h.  Hamelin  (German  Hameln)  is  a  town  of  20,000 
people  (1905),  in  the  province  of  Hanover,  33  miles  by 

*  See  explanation  at  the  beginning  of  Chapter  IV. 

2  It  has  been  a  pleasure  to  the  writer  to  hear  it.  No  doubt  some  of  the 
children  of  the  reader's  acquaintance  can  repeat  it. 

114 


THE  PIED  PIPER  OF  HAMELIN  I15 

the  railroad  southwest  of  the  city  of  Hanover,  in  Prussia. 
It  is  situated  on  the  river  Weser,  at  the  point  where  the 
Hamel  flows  in.     Browning  is  mistaken  when  he  says, 
"Hamelin  Town's  in  Brunswick." 

It  is  not  far  from  the  borders  of  Brunswick  and  has  been 
at  times  in  its  history  under  the  protection  of  the  dukes 
of  Brunswick,  but  it  is  in  Hanover. 

c.  The  legend  is  found  in  various  works,  ^.g.  (i)  Richard 
Verstegen,  Restitution  of  Decayed  Intelligence  in  Antiqui- 
ties concerning  the  English  Nation,  1605,^  (2)  Nathaniel 
Wanley,  The  Wonders  of  the  Little  World,  or  a  General 
History  of  Man,  1678.^ 

d.  A  piper  named  Bunting,  for  the  promise  of  a  sum  of 
money,  freed  the  town  from  rats,  by  playing  on  his  pipe 
while  they  followed  until  he  led  them  into  the  Weser  and 
they  were  drowned.  The  townsmen  then  refused  to  pay 
him.  So  he  went  away  again,  playing,  followed  by  the 
children,  130  in  all.  He  led  them  to  a  hill  called  the  Koppel- 
berg  (or  Koppenberg,  as  some  spell  it)  whose  side  opened 
and  they  entered  and  disappeared.  The  event  is  recorded 
in  inscriptions  in  the  town,  and  was  long  regarded  as  his- 
torical. *'For  a  considerable  time  the  town  dated  its 
public  documents  from  the  event."  ^ 

e.  The  year  was  1284  (June  26).  Browning  has  July  22, 
1376  (p.  356,  11.  31-33).  How  he  got  the  date  wrong  by 
almost  lob  years,  no  one  seems  to  explain. 

1  Published,  Antwerp,  1605  ;  reprinted,  London,  1673.  Its  author's  real 
name  was  Richard  Rowlands  and  he  was  bom  near  the  Tower  of  London, 
but  many  of  his  works  were  published  under  the  name  or  initials  of  Richard 
Verstegen. 

'  Also  eds.  1774,  with  revision  and  index,  1806-07,  2  vols.,  with  additions 
by  Wm.  Johnston. 

*  Encyclopcedia  Britannica,  nth  ed.,  Cambridge,  1910,  vol.  XII,  p.  876, 
art.  Hameln. 


Il6  DROWNING  STUDIES 

f.  The  town  of  Brandenburg,  some  37  miles  southwest  of 
Berlin,  and  the  town  of  Lorch  in  Wiirtemberg  have  tales  of 
such  an  event  as  having  taken  place  at  each  of  them.  There 
are  similar  Persian  and  Chinese  legends.  We  recognize  a 
widely  diffused  legend,  fastened  upon  different  locaHties.^ 

g.  P.  354,  1.  35,  Cham,  now  usually  written  khan,  — 
word  for  prince,  chief,  governor  —  here  used  for  the  head 
ruler  of  Tartary. 

1.  37,  Nizam  (Nizam-ul-Mulk,  Regulator  of  the  State),  the 
title  of  the  native  sovereigns  who,  since  17 19,  have  ruled 
Hyderabad,  an  extensive  territory  in  the  interior  of  southern 
India.     The  territory  is  often  called  Nizam^s  Dominions. 

4.  The  versification  of  the  poem  is  rapid  and  full  of 
variety.  There  are  many  of  those  grotesque  rhymes  with 
which  Browning  likes  to  decorate  his  humorous  pieces. 
The  drollest  of  them  are:  ''Trump  of  Doom's  tone"  and 
"painted  tombstone"  (p.  354,  11.  14,  15),  ''river  Weser" 
and  "Julius  Caesar"  (11.  67,  69),  "pickle-tub-boards"  and 
"conserve-cupboards"  (11.  77,  78),  "by  psaltery"  and 
"drysaltery"  (11.  82,  84),  ''rare  havoc"  and  "Vin-de- 
Grave,  Hock"2(p.  355,  11.  5,  6). 

5.  The  humor  is  very  rich.  It  is  all  so  good  that  it  seems 
out  of  order  to  quote  a  sample,  but  the  Mayor's  eye  is  per- 
haps a  little  better  than  any  of  the  other  droll  descriptions : 

"Nor  brighter  was  his  eye,  nor  moister 
Than  a  too-long-opened  oyster."  ' 

*  Some  trace  the  origin  of  the  legend  to  the  Children's  Crusade  of  121 2. 
This  might  be  the  thing  which  led  to  the  legend's  being  adapted  and  attached 
to  various  places  in  Germany,  but  not  the  origin  of  the  legend  itself.  In 
favor  of  there  being  some  basis  of  fact  in  the  case  of  Hameln,  the  article  in 
the  Encyclopadia  Britannica  points  out  that  the  Koppelberg  is  not  one  of 
the  imposing  elevations  by  which  the  town  is  surrounded,  but  a  low  hill 
barely  enough  to  hide  the  children  from  sight  as  they  left  the  town. 

2  Two  kinds  of  wine  arrayed  at  the  end  of  the  list,  to  make  the  rhyme. 

»P.  353, 11.  90,91. 


THE  STATUE  AND  TEE  BUST  I17 

II.  The  Statue  and  the  Bust,  pp.  372-375 

Published  in  vol.  I  of  Men  and  Women,  1855. 

1.  In  the  Piazza  delP  Annunziata  in  Florence  stands 
an  equestrian  statue  of  Grand  Duke  Ferdinand  I  (Fer- 
dinand de'  Medici,  born  about  1549,  succeeded  his  brother 
Francesco  I  as  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany  in  1587,  died 
1609.  He  was  a  younger  son  of  Cosimo  the  Great,  1519- 
1574) .  The  statue  is  by  the  great  sculptor  John  of  Douay  ^ 
(i 524-1608),  one  of  his  finest  works.  It  faces  the  old 
Riccardi  Palace,  now  called  the  Antinori  Palace.  This 
is,  of  course,  the  palace  mentioned  in  the  first  line  of  the 
poem  and  was  where  the  Riccardi  lived  whose  bride  looked 
out  and  saw  Duke  Ferdinand  ride  by.  It  should  not  be 
confused  with  the  palace  (p.  372,  11.  54-74,  especially 
11.  57-62)  2  in  the  Via  Larga  (now  called  the  Via  Cavour), 
where  the  feast  was  held  that  night,  at  which  the  bridal 
pair  were  guests.  (Lines  63-71  describe  the  Duke  receiv- 
ing them.)     That  was  Duke  Ferdinand's  own  residence. 

2.  The  story  is  that  Ferdinand  had  the  statue  so  placed 
because  in  that  palace  of  the  Riccardi  lived  the  lady  he 
loved,  kept  a  prisoner  by  a  jealous  husband. 

3.  The  bust  seems  to  be  Browning's  invention.  He 
admits  there's  none  there  now  (p.  374,  1.  48). 

4.  The  crime  (p.  372,  1.  59)  was  the  usurpation  of  the 
authority  of  the  Republic  by  Cosimo  de'  Medici  (Cosimo 
the  Elder,  1389-1464),  referred  to  in  lines  61  and  62  as 
the  murder  of  the  Republic.  Rohhia's  craft  (p.  374,  1.  28, 
cf.  1.  46),  the  kind  of  work  in  enamelled  terra-cotta  origi- 

1  P .  3  74, 1. 6 1 .    He  is  usually  called  Giovanni  da  Bologna,  John  of  Bologna. 

2  That  was  the  Medici  Palace  and  was  sold  in  1659  to  the  Riccardi,  and  so 
is  now  called  the  Riccardi  Palace.  But  in  the  days  of  Ferdinand  I,  of  course, 
the  Medici  lived  there  and  the  Riccardi  lived  in  what  was  then  the  Palazzo 
Riccardi,  viz.  the  palace  toward  which  this  statue  faces. 


Il8  BROWNING  STUDIES 

nated  by  Luca  della  Robbia  (who  died  in  1463)  and 
carried  on  by  the  family  for  a  hundred  years.  The  last 
well-known  artist  of  the  family,  Girolamo  della  Robbia, 
died  in  1566.  In  the  last  line,  De  te,  fabulal  Hterally, 
concerning  thee,  the  story!  i.e.  the  story  is  concerning  you, 
it  hits  your  case,  there's  a  moral  in  it  for  you. 

5.  The  verse-form  is  Terza  Rima,  which  originated 
with  the  Troubadours,  and  was  first  extensively  used  by 
Dante  (i 265-1321)  in  the  Divine  Comedy  and  to  some 
extent  by  Boccaccio  (131 3- 137 5)  after  him.  It  was 
introduced  into  England  by  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  (1503- 
1542)  or  by  the  Earl  of  Surrey  (15 16-1547,  their  poems 
published  together  in  TotteFs  Miscellany,  1557),  and  has 
been  variously  adapted  and  experimented  with  by  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  Samuel  Daniel,  Lord  Byron,  and  others. 
Mrs.  Browning  has  used  it  for  her  Casa  Guidi  Windows. 
The  finest  piece  of  Terza  Rima  in  EngHsh  is  Shelley's 
Ode  to  the  West  Wind.  Browning  does  not  handle  it  nearly 
so  well  as  Shelley. 

6.  The  point  in  this  poem  has  been  already  referred 
to  in  our  discussion  of  Browning's  characteristics.  The 
Duke  and  Riccardi's  wife  had  decided  to  elope,  to  commit 
the  sin.  According  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus  (Matt.  5 :  27, 
28),  they  were  already  guilty  of  it,  having  formed  the 
purpose  in  their  thoughts.  But  instead  of  carrying  it 
out,  they  delayed  days,  weeks,  years,  still  cherishing  those 
desires.  And  their  souls  shrivelled.  They  were  put  to 
the  test  and  failed.  It  tested  them  as  surely  as  if  it  had 
been  -a  good  thing  they  delayed  to  do.  Whatever  has 
become  of  them.  Browning  is  sure  they  do  not  see  God 
nor  have  any  place  with  those  who  "have  dared  and  done :" 

"Only  they  see  not  God,  I  know,  «, 

\  Nor  all  that  chivalry  of  his, 


"CHILDE  ROLAND  TO  THE  DARK   TOWER  CAME"    119 

The  soldier-saints  who,  row  on  row, 

Burn  upward  each  to  his  point  of  bliss 

Since,  the  end  of  life  being  manifest. 

He  had  burned  his  way  thro'  the  world  to  this."  * 

III.  "Childe  Roland  to  the  Dark  Tower  Came," 
PP-  375-378 

Published  in  vol.  I  of  Men  and  Women,  1855. 

1.  This  poem  was  written  in  Paris  in  one  day,  Jan.  3, 
1852,  and  was  not  revised  after  that. 

2.  It  was  suggested,  as  Browning's  note  at  the  head  of 
the  poem  indicates,  by  a  line  of  Edgar's .  song  in  Shake- 
speare's King  Lear. 

a.  As  you  remember,  Edgar,  to  save  his  life,  is  disguised 
as  a  madman  and  acts  the  part.  Pouring  out  a  mass  of 
incoherent  nonsense  in  Act  III  scene  iv,  he  sings  at  the 
end  of  the  scene  this  snatch  of  a  song : 

"  Child  Rowland  to  the  dark  tower  came, 
His  word  was  still,  —  Fie,  foh,  and  fum, 
I  smell  the  blood  of  a  British  man." 

The  great  dissimilarity  between  the  first  line  and  what 
follows  has  suggested  to  several  critics  that  Edgar,  in  his 
pretending  to  be  crack-brained,  throws  together  bits  of 
two  different  songs.  This  is  probably  the  case.  The  first 
line  is  evidently  from  a  ballad  older  than  Shakespeare's 
time  and  probably  famihar  to  his  audience,  but  it  has 
not  yet  been  elsewhere  discovered.  Traces  of  the  other 
two  lines,  or  rather  of  the  "Fie,  foh,  and  fum,  etc.,"  have 
been  found. ^ 

1  P.  374,  U.  79-84. 

'  See  Furness,  Variorum  Shakespeare,  King  Lear,  Philadelphia,  1880, 
pp.  201,  202  (same  pp.  in  loth  ed.  1908).  In  spelling  Child  Rowland  most 
editors  follow  the  early  editions,  but  I  have  seen  one  or  two  recent  editions 
jvith  the  spelling  Childe  Roland. 


120  BROWNING  STUDIES 

h.  The  first  line  of  Edgar^s  song  caught  Browning^s 
imagination.  Undoubtedly  what  struck  Browning  was 
the  word  "came"  —  arrived ^  accomplished  what  he  set  out 
to  do.  This  chimed  in  with  Browning^s  nature  and  his 
doctrine  of  sticking,  with  iron  determination,  to  what  you 
undertake.  So  he  let  his  fancy  loose  on  conditions  preced- 
ing and  attending  the  knight's  arrival  at  the  Tower. 

c.  Browning's  poem,  then,  should  be  weaned  entirely 
from  Shakespeare's  King  Lear  and  Edgar's  pretended 
madness,  except  for  the  slightest  contact,  viz.  this:  the 
line  of  an  old  song  in  Edgar's  mouth  fired  Browning's 
imagination. 

d.  "Child,"  when  used  as  in  this  song  (and  generally 
spelled  Childe  when  so  used),  was  applied  to  young  knights 
and  young  men  of  noble  birth.  See  Spenser's  use  of  it 
in  The  Faerie  Queene.  Cf.  Byron's  styling  himself  "Childe 
Harold"  in  Childe  Harold^ s  Pilgrimage. 

3.  "Childe  Roland"  is  Sir  Roland,  the  strongest  and 
bravest  of  Charlemagne's  paladins. 

a.  Charlemagne  (Charles,  the  Great),  King  of  the  Franks, 
was  crowned  Emperor  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  in  St. 
Peter's  Church  in  Rome,  on  Christmas  day,  in  the  year 
800. 

h.  Around  him  and  his  knights  has  grown  up  a  mass  of 
legend,  (as  aroimd  King  Arthur  and  his  knights,  only 
with  very  much  more  historical  basis). 

c.  Most  famous  of  all  Charlemagne's  knights  is  Roland, 
who  commanded  the  rear  guard  of  the  army  in  the  retreat 
from  Spain  in  the  year  778  and,  when  the  rear  guard  was 
cut  off,  lost  his  life  in  battle  at  Roncesvalles  (French, 
Roncevaux),  in  Navarre.  So  much  is  historical.  The 
legends  gathering  about  the  event  have  made  an  epic, 
the  famous  Chanson  de  Roland,  or  Song  of  Roland,  pre- 


"CHILDE  ROLAND  TO  THE  DARK   TOWER  CAME"    121 

served  in  Old  French,  —  immensely  enlarging,  of  course, 
his  actual  prowess. 

d.  The  adventure  referred  to  in  the  ballad  from  which 
Edgar  sings  a  scrap  is  some  one  of  the  other  legends  which 
became  attached  to  the  name  of  Roland  —  some  adventure 
of  his  earlier  years,  the  quest  of  the  Dark  Tower. 

4.  Browning's  poem  has  to  be  considered  entirely  apart 
from  any  historical  basis.  It  is  sheer  imagination.  The 
poem  is  in  the  mouth  of  the  knight  whose  adventure  is 
related.  It  is  therefore  reasonable  to  suppose  that  Brown- 
ing meant  to  imply  that  the  adventure  came  to  a  successful 
issue,  for  if  reaching  the  Dark  Tower  brought  him  into 
something  which  was  the  last  of  him,  how  could  he  be 
relating  thus  much  of  what  befell  him?  We  get  the  im- 
pression from  the  poem  that  it  is  some  time  afterward, 
perhaps  years  after,  that  Roland  is  relating  how  he  finally 
reached  the  Tower.  He  does  not  go  on  with  any  account 
of  what  happened  after  he  blew  his  horn.  "That,"  as 
Kipling  would  say,  '4s  another  story."  The  thing  on 
which  Browning's  imagination  works  is  simply  the  last 
afternoon  of  the  journey  and  the  arrival  before  the  Tower. 
The  earlier  wandering  is  referred  to,  but  only  because  of 
its  bearing  on  this  last  afternoon. 

5.  The  circumstances  are  quite  plain : 

a.  The  quest  of  the  Dark  Tower  was  a  quest  to  which 
knights,  one  generation  after  another,  had  devoted  them- 
selves (stanzas  vii,  xxxiii,  xxxiv).  (For  a  famous  ex- 
ample of  such  quests,  compare  the  quest  of  the  Holy 
Grail.) 

b.  There  existed  some  information  as  to  the  general 
marks  of  the  region  in  which  the  Tower  was  situated  and  a 
description  of  the  immediate  surroundings  of  the  Tower 
(stanza  ni,  stanza  xxx),  also  a  description  of  the  Tower 


122  BROWNING  STUDIES 

itself  by  which  it  could  be  recognized  (stanza  xxxi).  But 
the  direction  in  which  to  search  seems  to  have  been  lost,  for 
the  knight  in  the  present  adventure  had  wandered  world- 
wide (stanza  iv). 

c.  Knights  who  devoted  themselves  to  the  quest  of  the 
Tower  were  called  ^Hhe  Band"  (stanza  vii),  i.e.  when  a 
knight  had  sworn  to  take  up  this  quest,  he  had  joined 
"the  Band." 

d.  Why  some  knights  so  devotedly  gave  themselves  to 
this  quest  is  not  explained.  The  aspect  of  things  as  the 
poem  closes  would  seem,  however,  to  justify  the  idea  that 
it  was  with  purpose  to  avenge  some  great  wrong.  (We 
will  discuss  the  close  of  the  poem  later.) 

6.  The  following  comment  may  be  of  use  in  reading  the 
poem: 

Stanza  i  — on  mine,  my  eye  —  his  eye  watching  the 
working  of  his  He  on  my  eye ;  pursed,  puckered  up ;  scored, 
made  notches  in  (derived  from  keeping  the  score  by  cutting 
notches  in  a  stick) ;  one  more  victim,  Roland  thinks  this 
fellow's  business  is  simply  to  send  men  astray. 

Stanza  ii  —  ^gin  write,  begin  to  write ;  dusty  thoroughfare, 
the  cripple  sits  at  the  edge  of  the  travelled  road,  from 
which  the  knight  turns  off. 

Stanza  iii  —  The  knight  has  reached  the  region  in 
which  the  Dark  Tower  is  situated. 

Stanza  rv  —  what  with,  somewhat  with,  partly  with 
{what  used  adverbially),  —  rather  old-fashioned  but  still 
heard  occasionally. 

Stanzas  v,  vi,  and  vii  are  really  all  one  sentence.  There 
is  no  conclusion  to  the  sentence  until  stanza  vii.  So  there 
should  be  something  other  than  a  period  at  the  end  of 
stanza  vi. 

Stanza  vi  —  scarves  (plural  of  scarf),  staves  (plural  of 


''CHILDE  ROLAND   TO  THE  DARK   TOWER  CAME"    123 

staff),  to  be  used  at  the  funeral,  a  part  of  the  ceremony 
and  display  of  the  old  days. 

Stanza  viii  —  Us  estray,  viz.  the  knight  himself,  now 
turned  astray  on  the  plain. 

Stanza  ix  —  pledged  to  the  plain ^  having  decided  to 
travel  the  plain  and  having  begun  to  do  so,  having  com- 
mitted himself  to  it. 

Stanza  x  —  ignoble  nature,  natural  things  of  such  poor 
quality ;  cockle,  common  name  for  several  different  weeds, 
growing  in  such  a  place  as  this  it  would  be  darnel  (genus 
Lolium)  or  cockle-bur  (genus  Xanthium) ;  spurge,  harsh 
weeds  of  the  genus  Euphorbia;  treasure-trove,  money  or 
other  valuables  found  hidden  in  the  earth  or  anywhere, 
the  owner  not  being  known,  —  talk  about  weeds'  growing, 
a  bur  would  have  been  Hke  finding  a  treasure. 

Stanza  xi  —  It  nothing  skills,  it  makes  no  difference, 
there's  no  use  trying ;  calcine,  to  convert  into  powder  by 
heat  or  into  a  substance  that  can  be  readily  crushed  (for 
the  idea  of  heat  connected  with  the  end  of  the  world,  see 
2  Peter  3  :  10). 

Stanza  xii  —  bents,  spears  of  stiff  wiry  grass ;  pashing, 
striking,  crushing. 

Stanza  xiii  —  devil's  stud,  devil's  stable,  —  stud,  a  col- 
lection of  horses,  also  the  place  where  they  are  kept. 

Stanza  xiv  —  colloped  neck,  a  collop  is  a  chunk  of  flesh, 
—  this  horse's  neck  is  made  up  of  bunches  or  lumps  as 
if  of  collops  put  together,  or  as  if  an  effort  had  been  made 
to  chop  it  up  into  collops. 

Stanza  xvi  —  Not  it,  it  can't  do  what  he  expected  of  it 
(cf .  preceding  line) . 

Stanza  xvii  —  durst,  archaic  for  dared,  still  used  to  some 
extent;  faugh!  exclamation  of  disgust;  a  parchment,  on 
which  is  written  the  crime  for  which  he  is  hanged ;   his 


124 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


own  hands,  the  men  who  had  supported  him  in  his  insur- 
rection, bands  of  revolutionists  or  malcontents. 

Stanza  xviii  —  a  howlet,  an  owlet. 

Stanza  xix  —  hespate,  spattered ;  spumes j  bits  of  foam 
or  froth. 

Stanza  xxi  —  which,  the  river. 

Stanza  xxii  —  a  plash,  puddle. 

Stanza  xxiii  —  cirque,  circle ;  mews,  enclosure,  place  of 
confinement  (plural  of  mew,  a  cage  for  hawks,  a  coop  for 
fowls) ;  brewage,  anything  produced  by  brewing,  a  malt 
drink  as  beer  or  ale. 

Stanza  xxiv  — furlong,  40  rods,  one-eighth  of  a  mile ; 
Tophet^s  tool,  tool  from  hell.  Tophet  was  in  the  valley  of 
Hinnom,  near  Jerusalem,  —  the  valley  where  the  sewage 
and  filth  of  the  city  were  dumped  and  where  fires  were 
kept  burning  to  consume  offal  and  carcasses.  In  its  earlier 
history,  this  valley  was  a  place  of  altars  to  Molech  and  of 
abominable  rites.^  The  Greek  word  Gehenna  (the  only 
word  in  the  New  Testament  which  is  properly  translated 
hell)  is  from  the  Hebrew  Ge-Hinnom,  valley  of  Hinnom. 
Naturally  enough,  Tophet  and  Gehenna  came  to  be  sym- 
bolic of  torment  or  destruction. ^  The  word  Tophet  is 
not  often  heard  in  conversation  among  us  except  in  such 
expressions  as  *' hotter  than  Tophet." 

Stanza  xxv  —  stubbed,  covered  with  stubs,  i.e.  stumps 
left  from  broken  trees.  The  same  piece  of  ground  is 
described  in  these  three  lines.  Its  history  is  plain  from  its 
appearance :  once  it  was  a  piece  of  woods,  next  it  became 

1  See  Jer.  7:31;  32:35;  2  Chron.  28 :  3 ;  33 :  6,  and  Josiah's  action  in 
regard  to  the  matter  2  Kings  23  :  10. 

'  Cf .  Milton,  Paradise  Lost,  Bk.  1, 11. 404, 405  : 

"The  pleasant  valley  of  Hinnom,  Tophet  thence 
And  black  Gehenna  called,  the  type  of  hell." 


''CHILDE  ROLAND   TO   THE  DARK   TOWER  CAME''    125 

a  marsh,  and  now  it  is  ''mere  earth  desperate  and  done 
with."  The  same  ground  is  described  in  the  last  two  Hnes 
of  this  stanza :  within  a  rood,  a  quarter  of  an  acre ;  rubbkj 
rough  broken  stones. 

Stanza  xxvii  —  Apollyon,  the  angel  of  the  bottomless 
pit  (Rev.  9: 11) ;  dragon-penned  (Latin  penna,  a  feather), 
having  feathers  like  those  on  a  dragon's  wing.  Cf.,  in 
The  Ring  and  the  Book  :  ^ 

"Twitch  out  five  pens  where  plucking  one  would  serve." 

Stanza  xxvni  —  with  such  name  to  grace,  if  one  may 
call  the  ''ugly  heights  and  heaps"  by  such  a  name  as 
mountains. 

Stanza  xxx  —  scalped  mountain,  mountain  having  a  bare 
top,  Hke  the  head  of  a  man  who  has  been  scalped  by  an 
Indian ;  nonce,  the  once,  the  one  occasion,  (chiefly  in  for 
the  nonce) ,  —  at  the  very  nonce,  at  the  very  moment,  at  the 
critical  moment. 

Stanza  xxxii  —  Not  see  ?  repeating  someone's  suggestion 
or  a  thought  which  he  knows  may  be  in  his  Hsteners'  minds : 
''Maybe  it  was  getting  so  dark  that  you  couldn't  see  the 
Tower  until  you  were  almost  on  it;"  heft,  same  as  haft 
(both  from  O.  E.  hceft),  hilt,  handle. 

Stanza  xxxiii  —  Not  hear?  similar  to  not  see?  in  stanza 

XXXII. 

Stanza  xxxrv  —  slug-horn:  What  Browning  has  in 
mind  is  a  short  crude  sort  of  bugle,  but  the  word  slug-horn 
is  really  a  corruption  of  slogan,  rallying-cry,  and  the  use 
of  it  (older  than  Browning)  as  if  it  signified  a  horn  is  en- 
tirely erroneous.  Wright's  English  Dialect  Dictionary 
has  ^^  slug-horn,  a  short  and  ill-formed  horn  of  an  animal 
of  the  ox  kind,  turned  downwards  and  stunted  in  growth," 

*  Count  Guido  Franceschini,  p.  736, 1.  17. 


126  BROWNING  STUDIES 

and  one  might  argue  that  slug-horn  to  blow  on  is  that  word, 
with- a  history  similar  to  the  use  of  horn.  But  the  use  of 
slug-horn  for  slogan  (with  no  sense  of  horn)  shows  plainly 
that  such  use  as  Browning's  here  is  a  mistake.  The  punc- 
tuation which  places  anything  except  a  period  after  blew 
in  the  last  line  is  surely  wrong  and  is  prompted  by  a  mis- 
interpretation. ^' Childe  Roland  to  the  Dark  Tower  came" 
is  not  what  he  blew,  but  simply  a  summing  up  of  the  ad- 
venture, up  to  this  point.  Of  course,  in  a  certain  sense 
that  blast  on  the  horn  was  a  summing  up  of  the  adventure, 
and  in  that  sense  only  can  it  be  argued  that  the  horn 
seemed  to  say,  *'  Childe  Roland  to  the  Dark  Tower  came." 

7.  The  account,  then,  which  the  knight  gives  of  his 
reaching  the  Tower : 

The  knight  relates  that  he  had  been  for  years  on  this 
quest,  in  a  ''whole  world-wide  wandering,"  and  now  his 
hope  had  "dwindled  into  a  ghost,"  when  he  came  to  where 
by  the  highway  sat  a  repulsive  cripple.  The  knight  evi- 
dently had  long  ago  lost  his  horse,  for  now  he  was  on  foot. 
Exhausted  and  discouraged,  he  asked  the  cripple  the  way 
to  the  Dark  Tower,  and  the  cripple  indicated  that  it  was 
in  yonder  ominous  tract  of  country.  The  knight,  nothing 
doubting  that  the  cripple  was  lying,  in  fact  was  posted 
there  to  misdirect  travellers  and  get  them  into  trouble, 
nevertheless  turned  as  directed.  He  had  not  hope  enough 
left  to  bear  the  ''obstreperous  joy  success  would  bring." 
He  does  not  care  what  comes  next,  only  if  there  can  be 
some  end.  He  will  go  on  and  become  one  of  that  glorious 
company  who  have  given  themselves  to  this  quest  and 
have  failed.  He  is  Hke  a  sick  man  very  near  to  death, 
who  seems  indeed  dead  and  hears  them  speak  of  him  as 
dead  and  hears  the  discussion  of  details  about  his  funeral, 
and  desires  only  that  he  may  not  come  out  of  his  trance 


''CHILDE  ROLAND  TO  THE  DARK  TOWER  CAME''    127 

and  embarrass  them.  So  this  knight  has  so  long  been 
counted  one  of  ''the  Band"  devoted  to  the  quest  of  the 
Dark  Tower,  so  long  has  it  been  prophesied  that  he  will 
fail,  that  just  to  fail  Hke  the  rest  seems  the  best  thing  he 
can  do.  The  only  question  with  him  is  whether  he  is  fit 
to  join  that  company  of  those  who,  in  spite  of  all  high 
endeavor,  failed. 

And  so  he  turns,  "quiet  as  despair,"  into  the  path  across 
the  dreary  plain.  The  desolation  is  great,  even  at  first, 
and  increases  in  repulsiveness  as  he  goes  on.  The  sun 
of  the  late  afternoon  shoots  out  a  ''grim  red  leer"  at  him. 
He  loses  sight  of  the  highway  whence  he  came,  and  could 
not  go  back.  There  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  go  on.  The 
plain  is  so  barren  that  a  bur  on  it  would  be  finding  a 
treasure.  Nature  seems  to  have  given  up  as  impossible 
making  anything  of  this  place.  As  he  goes  on,  there  are 
some  thistle-stalks  with  chopped  heads,  some  dry  wiry 
grass,  some  dock-leaves  all  bruised  up,  —  the  whole  as  if 
trampled  by  a  brute's  hoofs.  Further  on,  he  comes  where 
the  ground  has  been  flooded  and  now  is  left  covered  with  a 
coating  of  mud  which  looks  as  if  it  were  "kneaded  up 
with  blood"  underneath  and  through  which  the  thin  dry 
blades  of  grass  prick  up  "as  scant  as  hair  in  leprosy." 
The  only  living  creature  in  sight  is  a  ghastly  specimen 
of  a  horse,  fit  only  to  be  turned  out  of  the  devil's  stables 
as  of  no  further  use. 

So  repulsive  is  everything  external  that  the  knight  tries 
to  get  courage  from  his  own  heart  by  thinking  of  other 
days  and  his  valiant  friends.  "One  taste  of  the  old  time 
sets  all  to  rights,"  —  will  help  him  now  in  spite  of  what  is 
around  him.  So  he  thinks  of  Cuthbert,  handsome  fellow, 
and  his  affectionate  way,  —  until  he  comes  to  Cuthbert's 
disgrace  —  one  night,  whatever  it  was  he  did,  shattered 


128  .BROWNING  STUDIES 

the  confidence  and  friendship.  There  is  no  comfort  nor 
encouragement  in  thinking  of  Cuthbert.  Well  then, 
think  of  Giles,  he  was  ^'the  soul  of  honor.''  Think  of  him 
as  standing  there  just  as  he  stood  ten  years  ago  when 
knighted.  A  brave  man  and  honorable,  "What  honest 
man  should  dare  (he  said)  he  durst."  But  just  here  the 
encouragement  that  was  arising  from  thinking  of  Giles 
is  dispelled  by  Giles'  end:  some  revolt  Giles  had  headed, 
some  outlawry,  —  and  the  mental  picture  of  the  brave 
young  fellow  turns  to  the  picture  of  him  hanged  as  a  crimi- 
nal. And  so  it  goes  on  —  no  comfort  in  memories, 
as  Roland  plods  on.  He  finds  no  encouragement  within 
himself,  and  he  brings  his  mind  back  to  "this  present," 
this  dismal  plain,  on  which  the  presence  of  an  owlet  or  a 
bat  would  be  something  to  be  appreciated. 

He  has  gone  on,  thinking,  not  noticing  much  his  sur- 
roundings for  a  while,  and  now  is  surprised  by  coming 
upon  a  little  river  flowing  across  the  plain,  not  sluggishly 
as  would  seem  fitting  to  the  place  (you  see,  he  has  drawn 
nearer  the  hills  without  noticing  it  and  there  is  more  reason 
for  current  than  he  supposes),  but  frothing  and  foaming 
spitefully  as  if  fit  for  the  hot  hoof  of  the  devil.  There 
are  alders  and  willows  on  its  banks  and  dipping  into  it. 
The  knight  wades  through,  reaching  his  spear  ahead  of 
him  to  find  holes  and  avoid  getting  in  too  deep.  So  grue- 
some is  the  whole  thing,  that  he  would  not  be  surprised 
to  find  his  spear  tangled  in  a  dead  man's  hair  or  beard, 
or  even  to  set  his  foot  upon  a  dead  man's  face.  Once, 
when  spearing  ahead  of  himself  thus,  something  cried  or 
squealed,  which  he  rigidly  makes  himself  understand  was 
probably  a  water-rat  struck  by  his  spear,  but  to  his  over- 
wrought nerves  it  seemed  for  the  moment  a  baby's  shriek. 

Reaching  the  other  bank  of  the  river,  he  thinks  for  a 


"CHILDE  ROLAND  TO  THE  DARK   TOWER  CAME"    129 

moment  that  it  may  prove  better,  but  is  disappointed.  If 
possible,  its  grotesque  hideousness  exceeds  what  he  saw 
before.  And  its  hideousness  is  of  another  sort,  showing 
evidence  of  human  or  fiendish  cruelty :  an  awful  struggle 
of  some  sort,  human  or  bestial,  has  taken  place,  and  passing 
by  the  marks  of  that,  he  comes  to  a  torture-machine. 
Further  on,  he  comes  to  land  **  desperate  and  done  with," 
and  then  to  soil  that  is  revolting  to  look  on  and  to  the  one 
tree,  a  ^'palsied  oak"  which  has  a  grinning  cleft  in  it. 
This  is  all  wearing  hard  on  the  man,  exhausted  as  he  is 
with  wanderings  and  hardships. 

His  eyes  fixed  on  the  hideousness  immediately  around 
him,  he  is  convinced  that  he  is  arriving  nowhere,  that 
there  is  naught  to  point  his  footstep  further.  The  thought 
has  hardly  formed  itself  in  his  mind,  when  he  feels  his  cap 
brushed  by  the  wing  of  a  great  black  bird  who  looks  as  if 
he  might  be  *'Apollyon's  bosom-friend."  Looking  up  and 
after  the  bird,  the  knight  perceives  that  he  is  among  the 
hills,  or  mountains  if  you  may  call  them  so.  He  is  sur- 
prised at  how  they  have  stolen  upon  him,  the  fact  being, 
of  course,  that  he  has  been  so  absorbed  in  the  desolation 
and  the  repulsive  sights  near  at  hand  and  so  absorbed  in 
his  own  thoughts  that  he  has  walked  into  the  hilly  part, 
not  noticing  it  in  the  dusk  of  evening.  He  does  not  see 
how  to  get  clear  of  these  hills  now  (he  has  no  idea  of  turn- 
ing back).  But  his  mind  is  working  as  a  mind  does  when 
half-recognizing  something  without  conscious  effort.  What 
his  mind  is  working  over  is  the  marks  for  identifying  the 
location  of  the  Dark  Tower,  coupling  these  that  he  has 
held  in  memory  for  years  with  what  the  eye  takes  in  from 
these  hills.  Suddenly,  with  a  flush  of  heat  over  his  whole 
body,  the  reahzation  comes  upon  him  that  this  is  the  place 
he  has  been  seeking.    With  that,  instantly  he  recognizes 


I30  BROWNING  STUDIES 

the  marks,  the  two  hills  on  the  right  like  two  bulls  crouch- 
ing with  locked  horns,  and  the  *'tall  scalped  mountain" 
on  the  left,  —  and  in  the  middle  the  Dark  Tower  itself, 
answering  exactly  to  the  description  treasured  in  the  mind 
of  every  knight  who  has  sought  it.  It  must  be  the  one, 
there  is  no  other  like  it  in  the  world.  The  recognition  of 
the  whole  thing  has  come  to  him  as  he  was  almost  running 
upon  it,  just  as  a  sailor  gets  no  warning  of  an  unseen 
reef  until  his  ship  strikes  it.  To  the  suggestion  that 
he  didn't  see  because  of  the  gathering  darkness  and  so 
came  close  to  the  Tower  before  knowing  it  was  there, 
the  knight  answers  that  the  sunset  kindled  up  again  ^ 
*' through  a  cleft"  in  the  hills  (or  perhaps  a  cleft  in  the 
clouds).  And  as  that  sunset  brightened  and  showed  him 
the  scene,  there  lay  the  hills  like  giants  at  a  hunting  when 
the  game  is  cornered  and  they  look  on  to  see  the  death  — 
*'Now  stab  and  end  the  creature"  —  only,  in  this  case  the 
knight  himself  being  the  creature  in  such  desperate  straits. 
Someone  suggests  that  maybe  he  didn't  hear  anything  to 
attract  his  attention.  To  this  the  knight  answers  that 
"noise  was  everywhere."  This  was,  of  course,  the  noise 
^*  in  his  own  brain,  the  turmoil  of  the  realization  that  he  had 
reached  what  so  many  worthier  than  he  had  sought  in 
vain.  The  tremendous  excitement  and  nervous  tension 
which  came  with  that  realization  make  him  seem  to  hear 
tolled  in  his  ears  the  names  of  all  the  lost  adventurers  who 
have  gone  on  this  quest,  with  praise  of  each  one's  strength 
and  prowess,  and  success  in  other  endeavors,  —  yet  each 
was  "lost,  lost !"  Of  course,  it  is  the  history  of  the  quest, 
brooded  over  so  much,  now  rushing  through  his  mind. 
It  seems  to  him  as  if  this  moment,  tolling  the  names  of 

^The  writer  has  several  times  seen  sCinsets  die  down  and  then  kindle 
again  so  that  they  were  very  much  brighter  15  or  20  minutes  later. 


''CHILDE  ROLAND   TO   THE  DARK   TOWER  CAME''    131 

those  knights  and  their  fate,  knells  "the  woe  of  years.'* 
And  in  the  tremendous  tension  and  excitement  of  the 
moment,  not  only  does  he  seem  to  hear  their  names  and 
their  fate  tolled  in  his  ears,  but  his  heightened  imagination 
pictures  them  all  as  ranged  along  the  hills  (^*  There  they 
stood,''  —  they  being  the  lost  adventurers),  looking  at 
him  now,  at  him  who  has  reached  the  Tower,  to  see  how 
he  will  conclude  the  quest,  —  grimly  he  puts  it  "to  view 
the  last  of  me,"  i.e.  to  see  how  he  will  behave  himself  in 
the  last  struggle,  which  he  thinks  will  very  likely  cost  him 
all.  They  form  in  his  imagination  "a  living  frame  for  one 
more  picture"  ("Uving  frame"  in  apposition  with  "they 
.  .  .  ranged  along  the  hill-sides").  The  "one  more  pic- 
ture" is  to  be  the  knight  himself  doing  what  he  is  about 
to  do,  the  picture  of  what's  going  to  happen  when  he  blows 
his  horn.  How  great  the  strain  and  how  heightened  his 
imagination  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  he  not 
only  sees  the  adventurers  lost  on  this  quest  watching  what 
he  will  do,  but  it  is  "in  a  sheet  of  flame"  he  sees  them  and 
knows  them  all.  And  yet,  under  such  circumstances, 
exhausted  as  he  is  and  with  all  those  of  the  past  who  have 
tried  and  failed  looking  down  upon  him,  with  all  that  may 
come  to  pass  in  the  next  minute,  dauntless  he  sets  the  slug- 
horn  to  his  lips  and  blows. 

"What  happened  then?"  is  the  question  so  many  ask. 
Why,  but  one  thing  could  happen.  Sir  Roland  has  sought 
so  long,  and  now  has  found  the  Tower  and  will  do  what  he 
came  to  do.  That  blast  on  his  horn  is  a  challenge,  —  not 
simply  a  blast  blown  to  celebrate  his  having  found  the 
Tower.  The  setting  for  the  whole  —  those  faces  along  the 
hillsides  "a  living  frame"  —  for  what?  For  the  picture 
of  the  battle  which  takes  place  when,  in  answer  to  his  horn, 
the  inhabitants  of  the  Tower  rush  out  on  him.    He  is 


132 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


"dauntless^*  —  in  view  of  what?  Dauntlessly  faces  what's 
going  to  happen  the  next  minute  after  he  sets  that  horn 
to  his  lips.  Exhausted  in  body,  worn  and  harassed  in 
soul,  with  a  consciousness  of  all  that  is  at  stake,  he  does 
not  delay  nor  hesitate,  but  dauntless  blows  his  challenge. 
This  is  exactly  in  the  spirit  of  Robert  Browning.  But  to 
tell  what  comes  after  would  be  ^'another  story."  Brown- 
ing started  to  describe  Roland's  reaching  the  Dark  Tower. 
And  having  seen  him  reach  it.  Browning  leaves  the  story 
with  the  simple  summary  which  started  him  to  writing  it : 
^'Childe  Roland  to  the  Dark  Tower  Came^ 

8.   The  poem  as  a  work  of  art : 

a.  The  poem  is  fascinating.  This  fascination  is  due  to 
(i)  the  wonderful  descriptions  in  it,  (2)  the  constant  sense 
that  the  story  corresponds  to  something  in  our  lives,  and  (3) 
the  desperate  determination  and  perseverance  of  the  knight. 

h.  The  poem  contains  many  stanzas  of  exquisite  poetry, 
and  some  stanzas  which  cannot  by  any  stretching  of  the 
word  be  said  to  be  poetry  at  all.  (i)  To  justify  our  remark 
as  to  exquisite  poetry,  we  have  only  to  cite  such  phrases 

as  (in  stanza  iv) 

"my  hope 
Dwindled  into  a  ghost  not  fit  to  cope 
With  the  obstreperous  joy  success  would  bring," 

the  details  of  the  simile  wrought  out  in  stanzas  v,  vi,  and 
VII,  the  ''quiet  as  despair"  in  stanza  viii,  the  whole  of 
stanza  xv,  the  lines  in  stanza  xx 

"Low  scrubby  alders  kneeled  down  over  it ; 
Drenched  willows  flung  them  headlong  in  a  fit 
Of  mute  despair," 

and  those  in  stanza  xxvii 

"And  just  as  far  as  ever  from  the  end  ! 

Nought  in  the  distance  but  the  evening,  nought 
To  point  my  footstep  further ! " 


''CHILDE  ROLAND   TO   THE  DARK   TOWER  CAME''    133 

and  in  stanza  xxx 

"Burningly  it  came  on  me  all  at  once, 
This  was  the  place  !" 

and  the  whole  of  stanzas  xxxn,  xxxni,  and  xxxiv.  (2)  To 
justify  the  other  part  of  the  remark,  i.e.  as  to  the  unpoetic 
passages  in  the  poem,  we  need  only  appeal  to  such  a  weak 
and  ineffective  line  as  that  at  the  end  of  stanza  xrv, 

"He  must  be  wicked  to  deserve  such  pain," 

very  evidently  put  in  simply  to  finish  out  the  stanza, 
and  to  such  things  as,  in  stanza  xxi, 

"It  may  have  been  a  water-rat  I  speared, 

But,  ugh  !  it  sounded  like  a  baby's  shriek," 

and  in  stanza  xxii, 

"Toads  in  a  poisoned  tank. 
Or  wild  cats  in  a  red-hot  iron  cage." 

This  last  example  is  an  extreme  one,  —  bare,  realistic, 
with  no  touch  of  idealism.  And  without  idealism  there  is 
no  art  of  any  kind  —  no  poetry,  of  course.  There  are 
many  other  passages  in  the  poem  not  so  extreme  as  this 
but  belonging  in  the  same  category.     In  stanza  xni  we 

read 

"  As  for  the  grass,  it  grew  as  scant  as  hair 
In  leprosy," 

and  in  stanza  xxvi, 

"Now  patches  where  some  leanness  of  the  soil's 
Broke  into  moss  or  substances  like  boils." 

These  are  almost  as  extreme  and  as  lacking  in  any  possible 
claim  to  be  considered  poetry.  (3)  It  should  be  added, 
however,  that  these  extremely  realistic  descriptions  do, 
whether  poetry  or  not,  accomplish  what  Browning  wanted 


134  BROWNING  STUDIES 

to  do,  viz.  give  us  a  vivid  sense  of  the  repulsiveness  and 
hideousness  of  the  plain  over  which  the  knight  goes.^ 

9.  The  poem  would  well  repay  study  from  the  stand- 
point of  psychology.  The  working  of  the  exhausted 
knight's  mind,  in  view  of  the  whole  situation  as  he  starts 
across  the  plain,  is  interesting,  and  especially  the  state  of 
mind  he  has  gotten  into  by  the  time  he  fords  the  river. 
But  still  more  significant  is  his  account  of  his  experience 
before  the  Tower.  Natural  enough  is  the  fact  that  the 
crucial  moment  brings  vividly  before  his  mind  the  whole 
history  of  the  quest,  —  a  phenomenon  to  be  classed  with 
that  reported  of  persons  drowning,  that  sometimes  a  man's 
whole  life  rushes  past  his  mind's  eye  in  a  brief  space  of  time. 

10.  What  did  Browning  mean  by  the  poem? 

a.  First  of  all  he  meant  to  write  a  piece  of  dramatic 
narrative,  and  he  certainly  did  it.  Anyone  ^«^o  reads 
the  poem  a  few  times  will  not  soon  forget  it. 

b.  And  Browning  did.  wo^jm^ana^, detailed  allegory. 
All  such  interpretations  are  unjustifiable.  Browning's 
own  statement  made  to  Dr.  F.  J.  Furnivall  ^  was  that  the 
poem  is  not  an  allegory.  Nothing  could  be  more  absurd 
and  further  from  Browning's  poem  than  Dr.  Berdoe's 
undertaking  to  say^  that  it  is  ^'a  picture  of  the  Age  of 

^To  the  remark  as  to  the  unpoetic  passages  in  "Childe  Roland"  Prof. 
Charles  B.  Wright  and  Mrs.  John  H.  McCrackan  have,  in  conversation  with 
me,  made  strong  objections.  Prof.  Wright's  argument  is  that  the  passages 
cited  as  unpoetic  are  necessary  to  the  artistic  effect  of  the  whole,  and  that 
therefore  the  poem  as  an  artistic  unit  justifies  these  passages,  and  that  it  is 
unjust  to  isolate  them  and  say  that  they  are  lacking  in  poetic  art.  Mrs. 
McCrackan's  argument  is  that  these  passages  represent  sublimated  hideous- 
ness, and  that  this  is  as  truly  a  form  of  idealism  as  is  sublimated  beauty, 
and  that  therefore  these  are  examples  of  poetic  art.  Both  these  arguments 
should  be  given  due  weight  in  connection  with  the  above  paragraph. 

2  The  London  Browning  Society's  Papers,  Part  III,  p.  21,  quoted  by 
Berdoe,  Browning  Cydopcedia,  ed.  191 2,  p.  103. 

3  Berdoe,  Browning  Cydopcedia,  w-  104,  105. 


''CHILDE  ROLAND  TO  THE  DARK   TOWER  CAME"    135 

Materialistic  Science/'  ^  and  in  particular  a  condemnation 
of  medical  research  by  means  of  inoculating  lower  animals. ^ 
Nor  is  the  blast  of  the  horn  *^a  warning  to  others."  ^  All 
the  best  words  in  the  last  stanza  lose  their  meaning  unless 
the  blowing  of  the  horn  is  a  defiance.  (See  our  discussion 
earlier  in  this  lecture.) 

c.  But  Browning  is  not  a  man  who  could  put  forward 
a  thing  so  graphic  and  stirring  as  this  without  some  mean- 
ing below  the  mere  words.  And  the  meaning  is  plain: 
it  is  unfaltering  loyalty  to  an  ideal.  (Read  Prof.  Royce's 
Philosophy  of  Loyalty  and  see  how  loyalty  to  something, 
anything,  gives  Hfe  a  meaning.)  Unfaltering  loyalty  to  an 
ideal  and  iron  determination  to  do  what  we  undertake 
to  do  —  these  will  carry  us  through.  The  desperate 
tenacity  of  the  knight  in  going  on  and  the  desperate  valor, 
no  matter  how  extreme  his  exhaustion,  at  the  end  —  these 
are  of  the  soul  of  Robert  Browning. 

d.  While  the  poem,  then,  is  in  no  sense  an  allegory,  it  is 
a  vivid  story  of  a  man's  sticking  to  his  quest  in  the  midst 
of  all  dismal  and  repulsive  surroundings  and  meeting  the 
climax  of  hardship  and  suffering  undismayed.  It  is  very 
like  human  life  at  its  hardest  and  blackest,  —  nothing  to 
cheer  us  inside  or  outside  of  ourselves  —  nothing  to  do  but 
to  face  it  grimly  and  go  on  —  and  like  enough  on  top  of 
all  that  is  hard  and  dismal  will  come  the  most  desperate 
struggle  —  yet  to  meet  it  with  a  dauntless  soul.  That  is 
what  is  in  Childe  Roland's  coming  to  the  Dark  Tower. 

^  Called  by  Berdoe,  p.  105,  also  "Atheistic  Science." 

2  This  latter  part  Berdoe  hangs  upon  the  words, 

"Toads  in  a  poisoned  tank, 
Or  wild  cats  in  a  red-hot  iron  cage." 
It  seems  to  be  inoculation  rather  than  vivisection  he  means  by  ph; 
"gloat  over  their  animal  victims"  and  "experimental  torturer." 

3  Berdoe,  Browning  Cyclopcedia,  p.  105  end. 


VII 

FOUR   OF   THE   MAJOR   POEMS   IN    MEN   AND 

WOMEN 

These  four  poems  were  published  in  Men  and  Women, 
2  vols.,  1855,  and  still  stand  in  that  division  of  Browning's 
works.  An  Epistle  and  Bishop  Blougrani's  Apology  were 
originally  in  vol.  I,  Cleon  and  One  Word  More  in  vol.  II. 

I.  An  Epistle  containing  the  Strange  Medical 
Experience  of  Karshish,  the  Arab  Physician, 
pp.  441-445 

Browning  had  the  rare  ability  to  think  outside  of  the 
atmosphere  in  which  he  lived,  i.e.  to  set  himself  outside 
of  Christian  civilization,  free  himself  from  it  to  an  unusual 
degree,  and  see  how  things  look  to  one  brought  up  in  a 
different  environment.  This  ability  is  much  needed.  In 
our  estimate  of  pagan  customs,  e.g.  the  holding  of  gladia- 
torial shows  in  the  arena,  we  are  too  quick.  ''Put  your- 
self in  his  place"  and  see.  In  our  estimate  of  other  re- 
ligions we  need  the  same  quality.  A  little  realization  of 
their  point  of  view  would  save  us  from  many  an  absurd 
snap- judgment.  Browning's  ability  to  do  this  is  strikingly 
shown  in  several  poems:  e.g.  in  Caliban  upon  Setehos,  a 
primitive  intelligence  trying  to  think  out  the  mysteries  of 
things;  in  Cleon,  a  Greek  pagan  poet  and  his  attitude 
toward  Hfe  and  toward  St.  Paul's  preaching  of  the  Christian 
faith ;  but  most  strikingly  of  all  in  An  Epistle. 

I.  In  the  eleventh  chapter  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  (usually 
called  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John)  is  an  account  of 

136 


AN  EPISTLE 


137 


the  death  of  Lazarus  of  Bethany,  near  Jerusalem,  and  his 
being  raised  from  the  dead  by  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  That  is 
all. 

2.  Now  one  of  the  strongest  desires  of  humanity  is  to 
know  something  about  what  becomes  of  a  man  when  he 
is  dead.  Is  he  extinct?  If  not,  is  he  unconscious  and 
will  wake  some  day?  Or  is  he  conscious?  If  so,  where 
is  he  ?  what  does  he  see  ?  what  does  he  hear  ?  what  does  he 
do  ?  does  he  know  what's  taking  place  on  earth  ?  and  so  on. 

3.  Now,  in  the  case  of  Lazarus,  here  was  a  man  supposed 
to  have  lain  dead  four  days.  He  could  answer  these  ques- 
tions, if  he  was  really  dead  and  raised  to  life  again.  Yet 
not  a  solitary  syllable  is  related  as  to  anything  he  said 
about  his  condition  or  experience  between  his  death  and 
his  resurrection,  nor  how  this  affected  his  view  of  life.  The 
questions  have  been  asked  thousands  of  times  —  everyone 
of  you  have  heard  some  of  them :  How  did  he  act?  What 
did  he  say?    How  did  life  look  to  him? 

4.  Robert  Browning  is  the  only  one  I  know  of  who  has 
had  the  audacity  to  imagine  how  Lazarus  acted  and  how 
he  looked  at  life.^    Browning  has  done  it  with  great  skill. 

a.  His  observer  is  Karshish,  an  Arab  physician,  skilled 
in  the  science  of  the  time.  And  Browning,  with  absolute 
consistency,  does  not  impute  to  him  any  of  the  medical 
science  of  our  time,  but  the  medical  science  of  centuries 
gone  by,  —  with  charms,  queer  dosage,  and  so  on.  The 
date  is  consistently  laid  just  before  the  siege  of  Jerusalem 
which  ended  in  its  destruction  in  the  year  70  a.d.^ 

*  Browning  does  not  undertake  to  imagine  what  Lazarus  said  about  his 
experience  while  his  body  lay  in  the  tomb,  but  somewhat  of  Lazarus'  experi- 
ence is  implied  in  his  estimate  of  values  after  his  resurrection. 

2  P.  442, 11. 1-3 ;  p.  444, 11. 10-14.  The  Jews  revolted  in  66  a.d.  Vespasian 
began  the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  but  was  made  Emperor  in  69,  and  his  son  Titus 
concluded  the  siege  in  the  year  70. 


138  BROWNING  STUDIES 

b.  The  Arab  physician  is  travelling  for  information  —  so 
common  a  way  to  learn  when  books  were  scarce  —  one  of 
the  best  means  of  education  anyway.  He  writes  letters 
to  an  older  physician  named  Abib,  his  teacher/  telling  of 
his  observations.  This  is  now  the  twenty-second  letter 
since  he  started  on  his  travels :  ^ 

"And  writeth  now  the  twenty-second  time." 

c.  With  great  naturalness  his  adventures  and  especially 
many  curious  observations,  such  as  would  be  interesting 
to  Abib,  are  woven  in,  —  his  hardships  in  travel,  his  being 
beaten  by  robbers,  his  being  treated  as  a  spy,  his  observation 
of  fevers,  epilepsy,  scalp-disease,  his  information  as  to  gums, 
herbs,  charms,  extract^  of  spiders,  and  so  on.  If  Browning, 
from  a  sense  of  delicacy,  had  left  out  these,  we'd  have  no  such 
atmosphere  of  reality  as  hangs  round  this  Arab  doctor's  letter. 
It  is  a  source  of  considerable  wonder  that  this  effect  can  be 
produced.  It  is  accomplished  partly  by  the  technical  na- 
ture of  the  details  given,  partly  by  the  touching  on  his  ad- 
ventures showing  the  troubled  condition  and  dangers  of  the 
country,  and  partly  by  the  informal  style  of  the  writing. 

d.  It  soon  becomes  evident  that  Karshish  has  something 
on  his  mind  which  interests  him  more  than  these  other 
professional  observations.  This  finally  comes  out  apolo- 
getically, and  he  frequently  tries  to  switch  off  from  it  to 
his  other  observations,  but  cannot  let  it  alone. 

e.  The  thing  that  interests  him  is  a  case  he  has  found 
here  in  Bethany,  "one  Lazarus  a  Jew,"  ^  who  believes  that 

1  P.  441,  11.  66  sqq.  2  p.  ^^^^  1.  ^g. 

3  When  Karshish  breaks  off  (p.  442, 1.  23)  it  is  not  plain  whether  he  meant 
to  drop  the  spiders  into  wine  (his  most  available  form  of  anything  alcoholic) 
and  make  a  tincture,  or  boil  them  in  water  and  make  a  decoction. 

^  P.  442,  1,  83.  The  name  is  not  given  for  some  time  after  Karshish 
begins  to  tell  of  the  case.  This  is  in  keeping  with  the  informal  style  of  his 
letter  and  also  with  his  attitude  toward  this  case. 


AN  EPISTLE  139 

he  was  dead  and  raised  to  life  again.  Karshish  looks  at 
the  case  from  the  medical  standpoint  —  the  medical  science 
of  his  time:  (i)  He  considers  it  "a  case  of  mania  —  sub- 
induced  by  epilepsy."  ^  (2)  The  one  who  brought  him  out 
of  his  trance  was  "a  Nazarene  physician  of  his  tribe."  ^ 
(3)  This  was  accomplished 

"by  the  exhibition  of  some  drug 
Or  spell,  exorcization,  stroke  of  art," ' 

unknown  to  Karshish.  (4)  This  Nazarene  physician  un- 
fortunately has  been  put  to  death  many  years  ago  at  the 
instigation  of  a  mob,^  and  so  Karshish  cannot  talk  the 
matter  over  with  him. 

So  far,  so  good.  No  cause  for  reticence  in  writing  of 
such  a  matter. 

/.  But  that  is  not  all.  Karshish,  in  spite  of  himself,  is 
interested  in  Lazarus^  way  of  looking  at  life.  Of  this  he 
cannot  help  giving  some  details,^  and  these  are  very  striking. 

g.  But  the  thing  he  most  hesitates  to  report  is  Lazarus' 
view  of  his  countryman  who,  he  believes,  raised  him  from 
the  dead.  It  seems  to  the  man  of  science  almost  profane.^ 
This  Lazarus  believes^  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  God 
dwelling  in  human  flesh,  who  bade  him  "Rise"  and  he  did 
rise. 

h.  Karshish  apologizes  again  for  giving  this  case,  throws 

1  p.  442,  U.  54-56.  2  p.  442,  1.  75.  3  p.  442,  U.  57,  58. 

*  P.  444,  11.  33-49,  especially  11.  37,  38.  Karshish  (11.  42,  49)  explains 
that  the  death  of  the  Nazarene  took  place  at  the  time  of  the  earthquake 
and  supposes  that  his  inability  to  stop  the  earthquake  was  what  brought  to 
a  climax  the  anger  of  the  people  against  him.  Cf .  Karshish's  own  explana- 
tion of  the  portent  of  that  earthquake  (11.  43-45)  with  the  circumstances 
as  related  in  Matt.  27:  50-53.  Nothing  could  better  show  Browning's 
ability  to  keep  the  standpoint  of  his  observer. 

^  P.  442, 1.  82-p.  444, 1.  32,  the  main  part  of  the  letter. 

6  P.  444,  U.  57,  58,  64.  '  P.  444, 11.  51-67. 


140  BROWNING  STUDIES 

in  a  few  other  medical  observations,  explains  the  circum- 
stances under  which  he  met  the  man,  and  closes  his  letter. 
i.  Then  in  a  postscript,  the  conception  Lazarus  has  of 
Jesus  burning  in  the  physician's  mind,  the  new  world  of 
thought  opened  by  it  staring  him  in  the  face,  he  adds  the 
statement  of  what  the  Incarnation  according  to  the  terms 
stated  by  Lazarus  would  mean  to  mankind  if  it  could  be 
true,  what  it  does  mean  if  it  is  true :  ^ 

"The  very  God !  think,  Abib ;  dost  thou  think? 
So,  the  All-Great  were  the  All-Loving  too  — 
So,  through  the  thunder  comes  a  human  voice 
Saying,  'O  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here ! 
Face,  my  hands  fashioned,  see  it  in  myself ! 
Thou  hast  no  power  nor  mayst  conceive  of  mine, 
But  love  I  gave  thee,  with  myself  to  love. 
And  thou  must  love  me  who  have  died  for  thee  !-*" 

5.  An  Epistle  is  altogether  a  remarkable  piece  of  imagina- 
tion, giving  very  truly  (i)  how  Christ's  deeds  must  have 
struck  a  man  of  education  when  he  first  came  in  contact 
with  the  report  of  them,  and  (2)  how  the  claims  made 
for  him  by  his  followers  must  have  struck  the  educated 
men  of  those  days  outside  of  that  circle. 

1  P.  445, 11.  1-8.  Mayor's  general  remark  should  be  quoted  here,  because 
he  cites  this  passage  as  an  illustration  of  the  quality  to  which  he  refers. 
Joseph  B.  Mayor,  Chapters  on  English  Metre,  2d  ed.,  Cambridge,  1901,  pp. 
217,  218: 

"I  hardly  know  whether  it  is  fancy  or  not,  but  to  me  there  is  no  poetry 
which  has  such  an  instantaneous  solemnizing  power  as  that  of  Browning. 
We  seem  to  be  in  the  company  of  some  rough  rollicking  Silenus,  and  all  of  a 
sudden  the  spirit  descends  upon  him,  the  tone  of  his  voice  changes,  and  he 
pours  out  strains  of  sublimest  prophecy.  To  use  his  own  figure,  a  sudden 
breeze  dispels  the  smoky  haze  of  the  crowded  city,  and  in  a  moment  we  are 
conscious  of  the  'crystal  silentness'  of  snow-crowned  Alps  towering  over  our 
heads.  I  will  close  with  the  concluding  lines  of  a  poem  which  has  always 
seemed  to  me  to  have  this  effect  in  a  remarkable  degree,  The  Strange  Experi- 
ence of  Karshish,  the  Arab  Physician" 


AN  EPISTLE  141 

6.  The  point  of  the  whole  poem  is  too  evident  to  need 
discussion : 

a.  We  say  we  believe  in  things  unseen  and  eternal.  We 
say  we  believe  that  spiritual  things  are  worth  while  and  that 
material  things  are  not  of  so  great  consequence.  We  say  we 
believe  this  life  is  a  part  of  an  endless  life  and  that  death  can- 
not destroy  us.   But  do  we  live  as  if  we  believed  these  things  ? 

b.  Taking  Lazarus,  a  man  supposed  to  have  seen  behind 
the  veil,  and  who  therefore  is  taken  as  one  who  knows, 
realizes,  all  these  things  which  we  profess  to  believe,  Brown- 
ing shows  how  this  man  looks  at  life  —  how  any  man  would 
look  at  life,  if  things  unseen  and  eternal  were  actually  real 
to  him.  This  Lazarus  has  a  different  scale  of  values  from 
that  which  most  of  us  have.  To  Lazarus,  things  that  so 
disturb  others  are  of  small  consequence :  the  coming  of  a 
Roman  army  to  destroy  Jerusalem,  the  passing  of  a  mule 
with  a  load  of  gourds  —  all  the  same  to  him.^  Nothing 
is  of  consequence  to  him  except  what  pertains  to  personality : 
a  look  from  his  child,  showing  something  of  the  child^s  soul, 
stirs  him  deeply.^  This  Lazarus  knows  what  eternal  Kfe 
means,  and  says ' 

"he  will  wait  patient  to  the  last 
For  that  same  death  which  must  restore  his  being 
To  equilibrium." 

Knowing  the  reality  of  the  unseen  and  eternal  around  the 
seen  and  transient, 

"He  holds  on  firmly  to  some  thread  of  Hfe 
Which  runs  across  some  vast  distracting  orb 
Of  glory  on  either  side  that  meagre  thread, 
Which,  conscious  of,  he  must  not  enter  yet  — 
The  spiritual  Hfe  around  the  earthly  life."  * 

1  P.  443, 11-  31-34.  '  P-  443, 11-  34-50. 

'  P.  443 ,  11. 90-92.    His  experience  has  done  its  work  on  his  soul. 

*  P.  443, 11.  63,  65-68. 


142 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


7.   A  few  notes : 

P.  441, 11.  59  sqq.  The  salutation  is  after  the  manner  of 
Greek  and  Latin  letters,  familiar  to  us,  but  is  confused  a 
little  by  the  large  number  of  phrases  arrayed  in  apposition. 
It  runs:  (1.  59)  ''Karshish  ...  to  Abib"  (1.  65),  and 
exactly  parallel  to  that  is  (1.  73) 

"The  vagrant  Scholar  to  his  Sage  at  home." 

The  verb  of  the  first  part  of  the  paragraph,  if  any  is  needed, 
is  *' sends  greeting"  which  appears  in  the  second  part. 
*' Sends"  governs  also  "three  samples  etc."  The  subject 
of  ''writeth"  (1.  78)  is  "the  vagrant  Scholar." 

1.  60,  not-incurious:  curious,  having  an  inquiring  mind, 
eager  for  knowledge  —  incurious,  not  curious  —  not-in- 
curious, not  not-curious;  he  makes  a  very  modest  claim 
for  himself.     Cf.  also  the  preceding  line. 

1.  75,  snakestone,  any  hard  substance  used  as  a  remedy 
for  snake-bites,  whether  applied  externally  or  pounded 
up  and  taken  internally.  Samples  of  snakestone  from 
Ceylon,  examined  by  Prof.  Michael  Faraday  (born  1791, 
died  1867),  were  found  one  of  them  to  be  of  animal  char- 
coal, one  of  chalk,  one  of  some  vegetable  substance.^ 

1.  79,  were  brought,  in  his  last  letter  before  this. 

P.  442, 1.  3,  Vespasian,  born  9  a.d.,  made  Roman  Emperor 
69,  died  79 ;  his  son,  Titus,  who  took  Jerusalem  and  de- 
stroyed it  70  A.D. 

I.  5,  balls,  eyeballs. 

II.  10-14,  the  description  of  the  distance  from  Jerusalem 
to  Bethany  is  not  elegant,  but  it  is  very  like  a  physician, 
probably  quite  Uke  a  physician  of  1800  years  ago. 

1.   15,  travel-scrip,  travelling-bag:    scrip,  sl  small  bag, 

*See  Berdoe,  Browning  Cyclopedia,  ed.  191 2,  p.  160.  Berdoe  cites 
Tennant,  Ceylon,  3d  ed.,  I,  200, 


AN  EPISTLE  -  143 

wallet,  satchel  (cf.  Matt.  10 :  10  and  often  in  the  Gospels, 
version  of  161 1). 

1.  16,  Jewry,  place  where  Jews  live,  here  the  Jews'  country, 
Judaea,  —  used  with  a  touch  of  contempt. 

1.  17,  viscid,  sticky;   choler,  bile. 

1.  18,  tertians,  intermittent  fevers  occurring  every  other 
day,  —  called  tertian  (from  Latin  tertianus,  of,  or  pertain- 
ing to,  the  third  —  tertius),  because  in  the  days  when  the 
name  arose  it  was  the  custom  to  count  both  ends  of  a 
period  of  time.  Cf.  the  N.  T.  writers'  counting  Fri.  after- 
noon to  Sun.  morning  as  three  days  and  using  the  phrase 
*'on  the  third  day"  in  referring  to  the  resurrection  of 
Christ.  Cf.  also  "after  eight  days"  (Jn.  20:  26),  meaning 
a  week  later. 

I.  19,  falling-sickness,  epilepsy. 

II.  20  sqq.,  there^s  a  spider  here  etc.  The  use  of  spiders 
to  some  extent  in  medical  practice  is  ancient  and  had  a 
long  vogue.  It  is  not  nearly  so  revolting  as  many  things 
in  the  therapeutics  of  bygone  centuries.  What  Karshish 
was  about  to  say  was  how  to  make  a  tincture,  or  else  a 
decoction,  of  these  spiders  as  a  remedy  for  epilepsy,  but 
it  is  too  valuable  a  secret  to  risk.  The  particular  spider 
referred  to  is  probably  the  Zebra  spider  (Epiblemum 
scenicum).  It  belongs  to  the  tribe  of  SaltigradcB,  or  leaping 
spiders  (including  especially  those  that  lie  in  wait  and  leap 
on  their  prey).  This  tribe  is  of  the  Wandering  group} 
See  Dr.  H.  McCook,  in  Poet-Lore,  vol.  I,  p.  518. 

I.  24,  runagate,  fugitive,  vagabond ;  this,  the  letter  he  is 
writing. 

II.  25,  26,  Eis  service,  in  carrying  the  letter,  is  to  pay  me 
for  treatment  I've  given  him,  viz.  blowing  a  sublimate  up 

*  Walcknaer  divides  spiders  into  five  principal  groups,  distinguished  by 
their  habits. 


144 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


his  nose  to  help  his  ailing  eye ;  a  sublimate  is  any  substance" 
refined  by  melting,  vaporizing,  and  then  condensing,  as 
is  done  e.g.  with  sulphur,  iodine,  camphor,  or  in  the  pro- 
duction of  benzoic  acid. 

1.  30,  gum-tragacanth,  sold  usually  in  dry  flakes  and 
employed  for  mucilage  and  similar  uses  in  place  of  gum- 
arabic.  It  is  procured  from  several  species  of  shrubs  of 
the  genus  Astragalus. 

1.  32,  porphyry y  hard  fine-grained  rock,  some  varieties 
red,  some  purple,  some  green  —  usually  with  crystals  of 
feldspar  or  quartz  interspersed,  —  used,  on  account  of 
its  hardness,  for  such  things  as  mortars. 

1-  33  >  ^^  fi^^f  literally  in  the  endj  i.e.  in  conclusion,  to 
sum  it  up. 

1.  35,  Zoarj  a  city  near  the  south  end  of  the  Dead  Sea. 

1.  42,  tang,  a  point,  projection,  sting ;  also,  a  flavor,  taste. 

1.  44,  the  Man,  Lazarus,  as  presently  comes  out. 

1.  53,  wit,  in  the  earlier  and  broader  sense  —  mind, 
intellect,  understanding. 

1.  54,  suhinduced,  literally  under-induced,  i.e.  caused  or 
started  indirectly. 

I.  57,  exhibition,  in  the  medical  sense  —  "  the  act  of  ad- 
ministering as  a  remedy." 

II.  60  sqq.  The  idea  that  disease  is  due  to  possession  by 
an  evil  spirit  is  ancient  and  widespread.  Cf .  the  healing 
miracles  in  many  instances  in  the  New  Testament. 

1.  64,  conceit,  in  the  more  general  sense  —  concept,  idea. 

1.  71,  or  .  .  .  or,  either  ...  or. 

1.  76,  ^Sayeth,  he  sayeth.  Cf.  our  use  of  says  without  a 
subject,  in  reporting  a  man's  remarks. 

1.  77,  diurnal,  daily  —  in  the  sense  here  of  being  daily 
met  with. 

1.  78,  figmentj  something  invented  or  imagined. 


AN  EPISTLE  145 

1.  82,  after-life y  the  life  which  Karshish  finds  Lazarus 
living,  after  his  experience  of  death  and  resurrection,  or 
after  this  "figment"  got  fastened  in  his  mind. 

1.  84,  sanguine^  in  the  literal  sense  —  full-blooded, 
(Latin  sanguis,  gen.  sanguinis ,  blood). 

1.  87,  as,  as  if. 

P.  443,  1.  3,  premise,  present  as  introduction,  explain 
beforehand. 

I.  5,  inquisition,  keen  searching  inquiry. 

II.  28-50.  The  condemnation  of  Lazarus^  point  of 
view  and  actions  is  entirely  from  Karshish's  point  of  view 
and  comes  from  his  testing  those  actions  by  his  own  scale 
of  values.  This  he  admits  when  he  adds  in  1.  37  paren- 
thetically "Far  as  I  see."  All  the  words  "witless,"  "pre- 
posterously," "wrongly,"  are  to  be  taken  with  the  quali- 
fication —  as  far  as  Karshish  understands. 

1.  61,  a  match  cannot,  of  course,  be  in  our  everyday  sense 
or  Browning  has  made  an  absurd  slip.  It  must  be  taken 
in  a  more  general  sense  of  any  means  of  starting  a  fire  or 
setting  off  an  explosion. 

1.  62,  Greek  fire,  the  use  of  liquid  fire  is  as  ancient  as 
Assyria  (as  is  shown  by  representations  on  the  monuments), 
i.e.  such  inflammable  things  as  sulphur,  tar,  petroleum, 
nitre,  were  thrown  on  the  enemy.  The  mixtures  used 
later  were  no  doubt  more  carefully  made  and  more  effective. 
Regular  Greek  fire  is  not  known  until  the  siege  of  Constan- 
tinople 673  A.D.  Although  something  of  the  sort  was 
undoubtedly  known  in  the  first  centur>%  the  particular 
combination  which  became  famous  as  Greek  fire  was  not 
known  then  and  Browning  has  made  a  mistake  in  having 
Karshish  write  the  phrase. 

1.  63,  He,  Lazarus. 

1.  69,  that,  the  spiritual  life ;  this,  the  earthly  life. 


146  BROWNING  STUDIES 

P.  444, 1.  37,  leech,  physician. 

1.  71,  blue-flowering  borage,  the  common  borage  {Borago 
officinalis),  a  plant  which  was  for  many  centuries  highly 
esteemed  and  supposed  to  possess  qualities  producing 
cordial  and  exhilarating  effects;  Aleppo,  a  city  in  north 
Syria,  now  capital  of  the  Turkish  vilayet  of  Aleppo. 

1.  72,  nitrous,  containing  nitre,  i.e.  potassium  nitrate, 
saltpeter;  //  is  strange,  his  thoughts  slipping  back  to 
Lazarus. 

1.  89,  ambiguous,  there's  doubt  as  to  what  the  Syrian 
may  do  with  the  letter  —  three  things  are  mentioned, 
all  of  which  are  equally  likely. 

P.  445,  1.  2,  so,  if  God  has  become  incarnate;  were, 
subjunctive  would  be. 

1.  3,  so,  same  as  in  1.  2  ;  voice,  typographical  error  in  this 
word  in  Globe  Ed. 

1.  5,  it,  a  face  like  yours :  the  words  of  the  line  are  really 
addressed  to  "Face,  my  hands  fashioned,"  so  we  ought  to 
say  a  face  like  yourself. 

1.  6,  conceive,  misprinted  in  Globe  Ed. 

1.  9,  He,  the  one  who,  Lazarus  says,  raised  him  from  the 
dead. 

II.  Bishop  Blougram's  Apology,  pp.  456-467 

Browning  gives  us  here  a  very  interesting  discussion. 
Much  that  is  said,  however,  in  the  vein  of  defending  super- 
ficial success  and  compromise  with  convictions  and  lack  of 
out  and  out  frankness  with  the  public,  is  unlike  Browning's 
genuine  attitude.  Browning  himself  has  safeguarded  this 
point  by  entering  a  caveat  at  the  end :  ^ 

*  The  appendix  (p.  467, 11.  30  sqq.)  to  the  monologue  is  added  on  purpose 
to  guard  against  our  thinking  that  Browning  supposed  he  had  really  justified 
a  man  in  Bishop  Blougram's  attitude.    Notice  chiefly  11. 39-64. 


BISHOP  BLOVGRAM'S  APOLOGY  I47 

"For  Blougram,  he  believed,  say,  half  he  spoke. 
The  other  portion,  as  he  shaped  it  thus 
For  argumentatory  purposes, 
He  felt  his  foe  was  foohsh  to  dispute." 

And  so  on.  The  chief  excellence  of  the  poem  is  the  dis- 
cussion of  Faith  and  Doubt,  and  all  this  smacks  of  deep 
sincerity  and  is  evidently  a  statement  of  considerations 
which  have  been  of  comfort  in  Browning's  own  life. 

1.  His  speaker  in  Sylvester  Blougram^  (no  historical 
person),  a  bishop  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  ^  in  Eng- 
land^ in  Browning's  own  day.^  Browning  purposely 
chooses  a  Roman  Catholic  to  be  his  mouthpiece  in  this 
philosophizing  about  Faith,  because  in  demands  for  sheer 
Faith  all  branches  of  the  Catholic  Church  so  far  exceed 
any  Protestant  Church  —  in  all  the  Catholic  systems  there 
is  so  much  more  which  the  faithful  are  expected  to  believe, 
and  some  of  it  {e.g.  Transubstantiation)  is  more  staggering 
to  Faith  than  is  almost  any  Protestant  doctrine. 

2.  The  reader  of  the  poem  understands  the  circumstances 
quickly.  The  Bishop  has  had  a  literary  chap  named 
Gigadibs  ^  to  dine  with  him  on  Corpus  Christi  Day,^  and 
over  the  wine  the  Bishop  speaks  frankly  about  his  faith 

*  P.  467, 1. 31  gives  his  full  name. 

2  There  are  many  passages  which  prove  that  Bp.  Blougram  is  a  Roman 
Catholic,  e.g.  p.  456, 1.  80 ;  p.  459, 11.  64-70,  79,  80 ;  p.  460, 11.  45, 46 ;  p.  461, 
11.  5-7;  p.  464,11.  21,43-47. 

3  P.  456,  U.  22-25 ;  P-  46s,  1-  34;  P-  467, 11-  3-19,  31,  32,  69-71 ;  and  the 
whole  atmosphere  of  the  monologue.  Blougram  has,  of  course,  been  much 
in  Rome  (p.  456, 1.  64). 

^  As  is  shown  by  references  to  contemporary  men  and  events,  e.g.  p.  456, 
1.  71 ;  p.  460, 11.  49-54,  79 ;  P-  462, 1.  67 ;  p.  464,  U-  20,  21, 60, 61. 

6  P.  456,  1.  32 ;  p.  467,  11.  3,  34. 

«  P.  456, 1.  S3.  Corpus  Christi  Qiterally,  the  Body  of  Christ)  is  a  festival 
in  honor  of  the  holy  Eucharist  and  is  observed  on  the  Thursday  after  Trinity 
Sunday.  Trinity  is  the  next  Sunday  after  Whitsunday,  or  Pentecost,  which 
is  50  days  after  Easter. 


148  BROWNING  STUDIES 

and  his  doubts  and  makes  an  apologia  for  his  position  in 
life.  Browning  has  frequently  thrown  in  remarks  to  be 
in  keeping  with  these  circumstances,  e.g.  the  parenthesis 
on  p.  457  (11,  67,  '68) : 

"  (try  the  cooler  jug  — 
Put  back  the  other,  but  don't  jog  the  ice !) " 

3.  Browning's  Bishop  speaks  well,  with  wealth  of  fancy 
and  precision  of  expression.  His  wit  is  keen,  and  has 
exactly  the  ring  of  a  prelate  wearied  with  the  pomp  and 
show  of  the  Church,  yet  knowing  the  worth  of  all  this  and 
speaking  of  it  in  genial  terms,  though  sometimes  not  very 
seriously.  Some  of  his  characterizations  of  things  will  be 
long  remembered  by  the  reader:  e.g.  anyone  acquainted 
with  the  struggle  between  science  and  theology  will  ap- 
preciate this :  ^ 

"cosmogony, 
Geology,  ethnology,  what  not, 
(Greek  endings,  each  the  little  passing-bell 
That  signifies  some  faith's  about  to  die)." 

4.  Gigadibs  represents  the  man  of  the  world,  with  his 
self-satisfied  air  and  his  patronizing,  if  not  condemnatory, 
attitude  toward  the  clergy.  The  Bishop  goes  right  to  the 
centre  of  this  attitude  at  once  ^  and  very  discriminatingly, 
in  pointing  out  that,  while  Gigadibs  despises  Bishop  Blou- 
gram,  he  feels  none  the  less  highly  honored  to  have  dined 
with  him  and  will  have  it  to  boast  of  years  afterward. 
Gigadibs  does  not  speak  in  the  poem,  but  his  reception  of 
Blougram's  remarks  is  frequently  shown  in  what  Blougram 
next  says.  Gigadibs  is  rather  bored  with  Blougram's  talk 
and  does  not  feel  its  full  import.  This  also  is  true  to  life. 
The  description  of  how  Gigadibs  acted  is  good :  ^ 

1  p.  463, 11.  84-87.  2  p^  456^  11.  32-70,  especially  11.  40  sqq. 

•  P.  467,  U.  30,  31,  34-36. 


BISHOP  BLOUGRAM'S  APOLOGY  149 

"Over  his  wine  so  smiled  and  talked  his  hour 
Sylvester  Blougram,  .  .  . 
With  Gigadibs  the  literary  man, 
Who  played  with  spoons,  explored  his  plate's  design, 
And  ranged  the  olive-stones  about  its  edge." 

5.  Browning's  sympathy  with  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  things  in  his  nature. 
Extreme  Protestant  as  he  was,  the  mystic  in  him  responded 
profoundly  to  much  that  he  found  in  the  Catholic  Church, 
his  aesthetic  sense  felt  strongly  the  appeal  of  the  artistic 
side  of  the  Church's  worship,  and  he  honored  the  genuine 
piety  which  he  knew  in  so  many  members  of  the  Roman 
Communion.  Protestant  cavillers  and  controversialists 
should  remember  that  Robert  Browning,  after  many  years 
in  Italy  in  the  midst  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  makes 
the  finest  figure  of  nobility  and  self-sacrifice  in  his  poems 
a  young  Roman  Catholic  priest,  Giuseppe  Caponsacchi  in 
The  Ring  and  the  Book.  It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  in 
Bishop  Blougram^ s  Apology  we  find  Browning  stating  the 
case  of  a  doubting  Roman  Catholic  Bishop  and  defending 
his  view  of  life  and  his  accepting  the  honors  and  emolu- 
ments of  his  ofiice  as  well  as  a  genuine  ecclesiastic  could 
do  it,  —  and  probably  much  in  the  same  line  in  which  a 
bishop  of  such  mental  make-up  would  have  to  speak,  if 
he  "made  a  clean  breast  of  it"  like  this. 

6.  The  figure  that  runs  through  the  poem,  often  recurring, 
is  of  life  as  a  voyage  and  our  adapting  our  luggage  to  our 
cabin-space. 

7.  But  the  chief  interest  in  Bishop  Blougram' s  Apology 
is  the  discussion  of  Faith,  and  the  principles  laid  down 
affect  Protestantism  as  much  as  Catholicism  —  are,  in- 
deed, universal  and  apply  inside  or  outside  of  any  form 
and  all  forms  of  church  organization.    It  is  hard  to  begin 


I^O  BROWNING  STUDIES 

to  quote  without  quoting  great  sections  of  the  poem. 
Some  of  the  points  in  the  argument  are  these : 

a.  Sheer  unbelief  is  as  hard  to  keep  as  sheer  belief  is. 
Blougram  proposes  that  we  throw  faith  overboard:  now 
being  sheer  unbelievers  what  have  we?  We  now  have 
unbelief  disturbed  by  belief,  just  as  we  had  belief  shaken 
by  unbelief :  ^ 

"All  we  have  gained  then  by  our  unbelief 
Is  a  life  of  doubt  diversified  by  faith, 
For  one  of  faith  diversified  by  doubt." 

Half  a  page  preceding  these  lines  should  be  quoted  in  con- 
nection with  them. 

b.  If  you  begin  to  believe,  there's  no  drawing  the  line :  ^ 

"some  way  must  be,  — 
Once  feel  about,  and  soon  or  late  you  hit 
Some  sense  in  which  it  might  be,  after  all. 
Why  not  'The  Way,  the  Truth,  the  Life?'" 

c.  On  the  other  hand,  if  you  begin  to  cut  away  things 
which  you  count  non-essential  as  matters  of  faith,  begin  to 
clear  off  "excrescences,"  it  is  difficult  to  stop  :  ^ 

"First  cut  the  Liquefaction,^  what  comes  last 
But  Fichte's  clever  cut  at  God  himself?" 

d.  Faith  is  the  positive  attitude  of  mind  without  which 
nothing  is  accomplished.  Faith  is  constructive  and 
dynamic,  and  the  great  things  done  in  the  world  have 

1  P.  4S8,  U.  59-61.  2  P.  458, 11.  44-47.  ^  P-  464,  U.  60,  61. 

*  The  Liquefaction  of  that  portion  of  the  blood  of  St.  Januarius  preserved 
in  a  crystal  phial  in  the  cathedral  of  Naples.  The  miracle  is  alleged  to  take 
place  on  special  occasions,  and  regularly  in  public  on  St.  Januarius'  Day, 
Sept.  19th.  Cf.  p.  464,  11.  43-47.  See  discussion  of  the  miracle  in  art. 
Januarius  by  Herbert  Thurston,  S.  J.,  of  London,  in  theCatholic  Encyclopedia, 
New  York,  1910,  vol.  VIII,  pp.  295-297.  Browning  here  uses  belief  in  it  as 
an  illustration  of  crass  credulity. 


BISHOP  BLOUGRAM'S  APOLOGY  151 

been  due  to  faith  —  faith  in  something.  Browning  gives 
many  illustrations :  e.g.  sl  man  is  crazy  who  thinks  unbelief 
can  make  a  Napoleon :  ^ 

"Be  a  Napoleon,  and  yet  disbelieve  — 
Why,  the  man's  mad,  friend,  take  his  Ught  away !" 

Faith  is  the  fire :  ^ 

"fire  and  life 
Are  all,  dead  matter's  nothing,  we  agree : 
And  be  it  a  mad  dream  or  God's  very  breath. 
The  fact's  the  same,  —  belief's  fire,  once  in  us, 
Makes  of  all  else  mere  stuff  to  show  itself." 

e.  Morality  is  rooted  in  faith  in  some  sort  of  invisible 
things.  Morality  cannot  be  accounted  for  solely  as  having 
been  an  evolution  from  expediency.  And  few  who  put 
themselves  down  as  sheer  unbelievers  are  willing  to  live 
consistently  with  that  profession.^ 

/.   Faith  is  a  sound  instinct :  ^ 

"You  own  your  instincts?  why,  what  else  do  I, 
Who  want,  am  made  for,  and  must  have  a  God 
Ere  I  can  be  aught,  do  aught?" 

g.  We  are  not  altogether  helpless  in  the  matter  of  whether 
we  believe  or  not.  Will  and  desire  have  some  part  in  it. 
And  Bishop  Blougram  considers  that  a  man  may  choose  to 
such  an  extreme  as  to  say :  ^ 

"I  absolutely  and  peremptorily 
BeUeve!" 

h.  But  doubts  will  come.    And  doubt  is  not  wrong  nor 

inconsistent  with  faith : 

"If  you  desire  faith  —  then  you've  faith  enough."  « 

1  P.  461, 11.  34, 35.  « P.  462, 11.  47-51. 

» P.  46s,  11.  44-70.  « P.  46s,  11.  75-77. 

»  P.  459, 11.  7,8.  «  P.  463, 1.39. 


152 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


Faith  unmixed  with  doubt  is  impossible :  ^ 

"Pure  faith  indeed  —  you  know  not  what  you  ask  !" 

It  could  not  be  borne. 

"  With  me,  faith  means  perpetual  unbeHef 
Kept  quiet  hke  the  snake  'neath  Michael's  foot 
Who  stands  calm  just  because  he  feels  it  writhe."  ^ 

8.  The  poem  has  woven  into  it  some  of  the  threads  of 
Browning's  best  philosophy : 

a.  The  good  service  done  by  evil  in  the  world :  ^ 

"And  that's  what  all  the  blessed  evil's  for." 

b.  The  main  thing  —  *'to  wake,  not  sleep :"  * 

"I  say,  faith  is  my  waking  life : 
One  sleeps,  indeed,  and  dreams  at  intervals, 
We  know,  but  waking's  the  main  point  with  us, 
And  my  provision's  for  life's  waking  part. 
Accordingly,  I  use  heart,  head,  and  hand 
All  day,  I  build,  scheme,  study,  and  make  friends ; 
And  when  night  overtakes  me,  down  I  lie, 
Sleep,  dream  a  little,  and  get  done  with  it. 
The  sooner  the  better,  to  begin  afresh. 
What's  midnight  doubt  before  the  dayspring's  faith?" 

c.  The  good  of  the  struggle  within  a  man,  set  forward 
in  the  grotesque  and  quite  unforgettable  picture  of  God 
pulling  upward  on  the  man  and  Satan  pulling  downward  — 
and  so  he  grows  (we  might  almost  say  they  stretch  him 
by  their  pulling) :  ^ 

"No,  when  the  fight  begins  within  himself, 
A  man's  worth  something.     God  stoops  o'er  his  head, 
Satan  looks  up  between  his  feet  —  both  tug  — ■ 
He's  left,  himself,  i'  the  middle :  the  soul  wakes 
And  grows.     Prolong  that  battle  through  his  Hfe  ! 
Never  leave  ^  growing  till  the  life  to  come  ! " 

1  P.  463,  U.  52  sqq.  2  P.  463, 11.  71-73.  3  P.  463, 1.  59. 

*  P.  459, 11.  8-17;  11. 18-28  should  also  be  quoted,  they  continue  the  same 
line  of  thought.  ^  p^  ^5^^  ii_  10-15.  a  leave  off. 


CLEON 


153 


9.  If  I  may  quote  just  one  passage  more,  —  this  time 
to  illustrate  the  picturesqueness  with  which  Bishop  Blou- 
gram  carries  forward  his  argument,  let  it  be  this  one.  After 
proposing  that  we  divest  ourselves  of  faith  and  see  how  we 
come  out,  he  goes  on :  ^ 

"How  can  we  guard  our  unbelief?  , 
Just  when  we  are  safest,  there's  a  sunset-touch, 
A  fancy  from  a  flower-bell,  some  one's  death, 
A  chorus-ending  from  Euripides,  — 
And  that's  enough  for  fifty  hopes  and  fears 
As  old  and  new  at  once  as  nature's  self, 
To  rap  and  knock  and  enter  in  our  soul, 
Take  hands  and  dance  there,  a  fantastic  ring, 
Round  the  ancient  idol,  on  his  base  again,  — 
The  grand  Perhaps  ! " 

III.  Cleon,  pp.  467-471 

We  were  speaking  of  Browning's  ability  to  put  himself  in 
the  place  of  one  who  had  grown  up  in  an  entirely  different 
civilization,  and  oi  An  Epistle  as  an  illustration  of  this. 
Another  illustration  of  the  same  power  is  found  in  Cleon. 

I.  This  also  is  a  letter. 

a.  It  is  written  by  an  imaginary  poet  (who  is  not  only 
poet,  but  sculptor,  painter,  philosopher,  and  musician)  .^ 
Browning,  at  the  head  of  the  poem,  begins  a  quotation  from 
St.  Paul's  address  on  the  Areopagus  in  Athens  (Acts  17  :  28) : 
*'As  certain  also  of  your  own  poets  have  said,  For  we  are 
also  nis  offspring."  The  words  given  by  Paul,  **For  we 
are  also  his  offspring,"  ^  are  from  the  Phmnomena  of  Aratus, 

1  P.  458, 11.  30,  32-40.  ^  P.  468,  U.  33-53. 

'The  words  in  a  slightly  different  form  are  found  in  Cleanthes'  Hymn 
to  Zeus  (4th  century  B.C.),  where  we  read:  "For  thine  offspring  are  we; 
therefore  will  I  hymn  thy  praises  and  sing  thy  might  forever."  Paul's 
using  the  phrase  "As  certain  also  of  your  own  poets  have  said"  may  easily 


154 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


a  Stoic  poet  of  Soli  ^  in  Cilicia,  in  the  third  century  B.C.  It 
is  not  likely  that  Browning  means  to  imply  that  he  thought 
Paul  quoted  from  an  unknown  poet  for  whom  Browning 
invents  the  name  Cleon.  But  Browning  takes  this  phrase 
to  introduce  a  letter  purporting  to  be  from  a  Greek  poet, 
just  as  Paul  uses  the  words  to  introduce  his  quotation  from 
Aratus :  i.e.  Paul  cites  one  poet,  Browning  cites  another, 
who  writes  this  letter. 

b.  This  letter  from  the  poet  Cleon  is  to  a  king  Protus 
**in  his  Tyranny.''  This  is  in  the  earlier  Greek  sense  :^ 
Tvpavpo9  (turannos),  an  absolute  ruler  of  one  of  the  Greek 
states,  kind  and  good  very  likely,  but  king  in  an  unlimited 
monarchy ;  thus  we  read  of  Pisistratus  (born  about  612  B.C., 
died  527  B.C.),  "tyrant  of  Athens,"  a  mild  and  beneficent 
ruler,  and  of  the  "tyrants"  of  other  Greek  cities;  "his 
Tyranny,"  then,  means  his  absolute  sovereignty,  or  it  may 
mean  the  territory  ruled  by  such  a  king.  Browning's 
poem  does  not  indicate  in  what  part  of  Greece  his  king 
Protus  rules .^ 

c.  This  king  is  a  patron  of  art  and  has  sent  Cleon  rich 
gifts  and  a  congratulatory  letter,  and  has  asked  him  certain 
questions.  The  nature  of  his  congratulations  and  the  nature 
of  his  questions  we  readily  learn  from  the  poet's  answer. 

imply  that  he  knew  the  sentiment  to  have  been  expressed  by  more  than 
one  Greek  poet.  It  is  possible  that  the  name  Cleon  for  his  poet  was  suggested 
to  Browning  by  the  name  Cleanthes. 

*  Not  a  native  of  Paul's  own  city  Tarsus,  as  is  so  often  stated,  but  of  Soli 
(or  Pompeiopolis,  as  it  was  called  after  being  rebuilt  by  Pompey  the  Great), 
a  city  on  the  coast  southwest  of  Tarsus,  in  the  same  province  of  Cilicia  in 
Asia  Minor. 

'  The  use  of  tyrant,  however,  meaning  a  ruler  unjust  and  despotic,  arose 
already  in  the  later  days  of  the  ancient  Greek  civilization. 

•The  reference  to  the  phare  (p.  468,  1.  41)  proves  nothing,  because  it  is 
only  a  general  word  for  lighthouse.  The  reference  to  the  Poecile  of  Athens 
proves  nothing  except  that  Protus  had  never  seen  it  (see  11.  43, 44). 


CLEON  155 

d.  The  king's  letter  has  just  been  handed  to  Cleon,  and 
he  is  writing  his  reply  as  the  master  of  the  king's  galley  un- 
loads the  gifts.^ 

e.  The  time  is  in  the  first  Christian  century,  during  the 
missionary  preaching  of  Paul,  the  Apostle  of  Jesus  Christ. 
This  is  evident  from  the  close  of  the  letter  ^  which  shows 
that  the  king  has  asked  Cleon  about  Paul  and  that  Cleon 
knows  Paul  has  preached  somewhere  in  the  vicinity  of  his 
island.  Paul  was  undoubtedly  martyred  near  the  close  of 
the  reign  of  Nero  Caesar,  who  committed  suicide  June  gth, 
in  the  year  68.  Paul's  death  was  some  time  64  to  67  a.d. 
This  letter  belongs  to  a  time  at  least  ten  years  earHer,  i.e. 
when  Paul  was  in  Greece  and  neighboring  parts  of  the  Em- 
pire, in  the  years  50-55  a.d.^ 

/.  Cleon  is  a  pagan  Greek,  with  all  the  learning,  sense  of 
art,  and  contempt  for  the  Jews^  which  a  cultured  Greek 
would  have. 

g.  He  is  writing  "from  the  sprinkled  isles"  of  Greece,^ 
"that  o'erlace  the  sea"  like  lilies,  —  probably  the  Cyclades, 
a  group  in  the  ^gean  Sea,  east  of  the  southern  end  of 
Greece. 

2.  The  only  words  that  need  explanation  are : 

P.  468, 1.  37,  epos  (Gk.  €7ro9),  an  epic  poem. 

1.  41,  the  pharej  lighthouse.    The  word  is  derived  from 

*  P.  467, 11.  78-83.  Notice  the  description  (p.  468, 11.  1-8)  of  how  one  of 
the  slaves  brings  to  Cleon  wine  in  a  cup  which  the  king  himself  has  used. 

2  P.  471, 11.  55-71.  Paul  himself  has  not  preached  on  that  island,  but  has 
been  near  enough  so  that  some  of  his  converts  have  preached  there. 

'  In  having  Cleon  at  this  period  address  a  letter  "to  Protus  in  his  Tyr- 
anny," Browning  forgets  the  historical  situation.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
there  were  no  sovereigns  in  any  part  of  Greece  in  the  first  century  a.d.,  but 
the  whole  coimtry  was  a  province  of  the  Roman  Empire,  —  the  province  of 
Achaia. 

*  P.  471, 11.  61-67.    Paul  is  to  him  "a  mere  barbarian  Jew," 
6  P.  467,  U.  74-76. 


156  BROWNING  STUDIES 

Pharos  J  the  name  of  a  rocky  island  off  the  city  of  Alexandria, 
Egypt.  Alexander  the  Great,  who  founded  the  city  332  B.C., 
connected  the  island  with  the  mainland  by  a  mole  ^  (called 
the  Heptastadium,  because  it  was  seven  stadia  long  —  about 
four-fifths  of  a  mile),  thus  providing  two  harbors.  Along 
this  mole  a  street  was  later  constructed,  making  Pharos  a 
suburb  of  Alexandria.  On  the  northeast  point  of  the  island 
the  famous  lighthouse  stood  for  1600  years.  It  was  built 
chiefly  by  Ptolemy  I  (died  283  B.C.,  founder  of  the  Greek 
dynasty  in  Egypt)  and  completed  by  his  son  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus  (Ptolemy  II,  born  309,  died  247  B.C.).  It  was 
hardly  a  lighthouse  in  our  modern  sense,  but  a  great  beacon- 
tower,  with  a  fire  kept  constantly  burning  on  it.  The  Greek 
word  pharos  {(fxipo^)^  then,  came  to  be  used  for  any  such 
tower. 

1.  43,  Poecile  (also  in  English  Stoa  Poscile,  and  Poicile; 
Gk.  ttoiklXt),  many-colored,  or  in  full  ?5  aroa  ttoikCXtj^ 
or  rj  ttolklXtj  arod,  the  many-colored  portico),  the  famous 
*' porch,"  or  covered  colonnade,  in  Athens,  where  Zeno, 
founder  of  the  Stoics,  taught  and  from  which  the  Stoics 
derived  their  name.  It  was  decorated  with  paintings,^  one 
of  the  artists  being  Polygnotus  of  Thasos  (5th  century  B.C.). 
It  cannot  be  that  Browning  is  ignorant  of  Polygnotus'  work 
in  the  Poecile  and  accredits  the  whole  to  Cleon.  He 
probably  means  that  there  were  paintings  there  by  artists 
whose  names  we  do  not  know,  among  whom  he  places  his 
Cleon.  But  the  language  (11.  43,  44)  "The  Poecile  ...  is 
mine  too"  sounds  as  if  Cleon  claimed  all  the  paintings  there 
as  his  work. 

*  This  mole  still  remains  and  has  been  increased  by  alluvial  deposits  until 
it  is  a  broad  neck  of  land. 

2  P.  468,11.43,44:  "o'er-storied  its  whole  length  .  .  .  with  painting," 
i.e.  covered  its  whole  length  with  stories  told  in  pictures. 


CLEON  157 

1.  50,  combined  the  moods.  The  various  sequences  of 
tones  and  semitones  in  the  diatonic  scale  —  the  variety 
depending  upon  where  you  begin  —  are  called  moods,  or 
modes  (usually  modes).  Thus,  e.g.,  on  a  piano  key-board, 
taking  the  key  of  C  {i.e.  omitting  the  black  keys),  if  we 
begin  with  D,  the  octave  D  to  D  gives  the  Dorian  mode, 
E  to  E  the  Phrygian,  F  to  F  the  Lydian,  G  to  G  the 
Mixolydian.  The  modes  furnish  great  variety  in  the  rela- 
tive position  of  the  tones  and  semitones,  and  a  correspond- 
ing variety  in  the  effect  of  the  music,  some  being  bright, 
some  sombre,  and  therefore  different  modes  being  suitable 
for  different  subjects  and  occasions.  The  Greek  music 
was  the  basis  on  which  the  music  of  the  Christian  Church 
was  developed,  and  the  principles  of  Greek  music  have 
persisted  in  the  music  of  the  Church.  In  the  earlier 
history  of  Church  music,  four  modes  were  recognized,  called 
authentic  modes,  and  these  are  thought  to  have  been  adopted 
directly  from  Greek  music.  Later,  four  plagal  modes  were 
added,  and  still  later  others  have  been  added  and  some 
made  by  combining  some  already  accepted.  The  develop- 
ment of  Church  music  was  gradual  and  never  the  work  of 
one  man  nor  of  a  few,  but  the  chief  stages  in  it  are  associated 
with  the  names  of  Ambrose  (born  about  340,  died  397), 
Bishop  of  Milan,  and  Pope  Gregory  the  Great  (born  542, 
made  Pope  590,  died  604).  The  Gregorian  music  is  still 
extensively  used  —  is,  indeed,  now  officially  the  music 
of  the  Latin  Church.  The  modes  in  it  are  usually  desig- 
nated by  numbers,  as  e.g.  the  first  mode,  the  second  mode, 
the  sixth  mode.  In  modem  music  only  two  modes  are 
recognized,  the  Major  and  the  Minor.^ 

*  These,  although  spoken  of  as  the  Major  and  Minor  key  and  Major  and 
Minor  scales y  and  although  they  may  involve  sharps  and  flats,  are  essentially 
modes. 


158  BROWNING  STUDIES 

P.  471, 1.  58,  PauluSj  Paul. 

I.  59,  Christus,  Christ. 

II.  59,  69.  This  echo  of  rumors  in  regard  to  Paul,  con- 
fusing him  with  Christ,  gives,  no  doubt,  a  faithful  rep- 
resentation of  the  confusion  in  the  minds  of  most  of 
the  people  of  Achaia  and  other  provinces,  —  knowing 
only  vaguely  and  indififerently  of  the  new  doctrine  and  its 
chief  promulgator. 

3.  The  poem  is  very  gracefully  written.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  choose  illustrations  out  of  its  almost  uniform 
excellence,  but  perhaps  these  lines  are  the  best : 

P.  467, 1.  83,  "Royal  with  sunset,  like  a  thought  of  thee." 

P.  468, 1.  32,  "  Within  the  eventual  element  of  calm." 

P.  471, 1.  49,  "  Freed  by  the  throbbing  impulse  we  call  death." 

4.  The  main  points  in  the  poem,  in  answer  to  the  king's 
congratulations  and  questions: 

a.  P.  468, 11.  33  sqq.  The  king  has  congratulated  Cle©n 
on  how  much  he  has  accompHshed.  Cleon's  answer  is :  It 
is  even  so.  He  has  done  all  these  things.  Cleon's  mind 
represents  the  growth  of  culture.  He  is  superior  to  the 
ancients,  his  mind  is  more  composite  and  therefore  greater 
than  the  simpler  minds  of  the  past.  They  were  each  great 
in  one  Une  and  in  his  own  line  each  of  the  great  in  the  past 
may  have  easily  exceeded  Cleon.  But  he  is  capable  of 
appreciating  the  best  each  one  of  them  has  done.  At  the 
same  time  he  has  wider  interests  and  more  varied  activity. 

b.  P.  469,  11.  53  sqq.  Has  not  Cleon  therefore  attained 
the  crown  and  proper  end  of  Hfe?  How  does  he  face 
death  ?  Having  gained  so  much  and  having  given  so  much 
to  enrich  the  Hfe  of  the  world,  can  it  not  be  said  of  him 
that  he  does  not  die?  No,  says  Cleon.  He  sees  that 
rekntless  progress  is  a  law  in  all  around  him.    But  the 


CLEON  159 

individual  is  lost.  The  progress  is  accomplished  by  the 
individual's  adding  himself,  his  life  and  work,  to  the  world's 
life  and  losing  himself.  But  to  say  that  this  is  immortality 
is  juggling  with  words.  There  is  small  comfort  for  the 
individual  in  the  progress  of  the  race,  if  the  individual 
soul  perishes.  The  individual  has  not  really  achieved 
immortality.  To  survive  incorporate  with  the  life  of 
humanity,  even  to  live  as  an  individual  in  the  memory  of 
men,  is  not  really  to  be  alive,  —  and  Cleon  shrinks  from 
it,  he  loves  life  so  much. 

c.  P.  470,  11.  77  sqq.  But,  insists  the  king  in  his  letter, 
such  a  poet  or  artist  lives  in  his  works.  Cleon  repeats 
that  this  is  not  life.  The  king  has  tripped  upon  a  word. 
Knowing  how  and  showing  how  to  live  are  very  different 
from  actually  Hving.  Knowing  what  joy  is  is  different 
from  feeling  joy.  Writing  of  love  is  not  the  same  as  loving 
and  being  loved.  If  Sappho  and  iEschylus  live  still,  as 
the  king  says  they  do,  let  them  come  and  do  what  a  living 
man  can  do.  No,  no,  the  idea  which  the  king  has  so 
generously  expressed,^  that  he  cannot  face  death  as  cheer- 
fully as  Cleon  can  because  he  leaves  no  works  in  which  to 
live  as  Cleon  does  —  this  is  exactly  contrary  to  the  case. 
Cleon's  ''fate  is  deadher  still."  For  Cleon,  after  all  his 
intensity  of  life  out  of  which  these  works  were  made, 
himself  will  be  dead,  while  his  works  will  be  alive  to  mock 
him.2  Cleon  says  he  has  thought  of  the  possibility  of 
personal  immortality,  a  future  state  with  joy  enough  to 
satisfy   the    "joy-hunger"    which   we   have   here.     Then 

— T_  1  See  quotation  from  his  letter,  p.  469, 11.  63-75.    Cf.  p.  471, 1-  26. 

2  The  mockery  consists  in  this  situation :  that  the  works  will  still  have 
their  part  in  the  life  of  men,  while  the  personality  which  gave  them  being 
will  be  extinct.  This  passage  (p.  471,  11.  27-41)  is  the  most  poignant  in 
the  poem.  Surely  it  is  out  of  Browning's  own  love  of  life  and  his  recoil  from 
being  blotted  out. 


l6o  BROWNING  STUDIES 

death  would  be  only  emancipation.     But  he  judges  it  is 
not  a  fact,  or  else  Zeus  would  have  revealed  it  to  us. 

d.  P.  471,  11.  54  sqq.  Farewell  and  postscript.  The 
postscript  refers  to  the  king's  question  as  to  Paul  and  his 
preaching.  It  gives  the  cultured  Greek's  attitude.  The 
king's  servant  has  a  letter  for  Paulus,  if  he  can  find  him,— 
doubtless  to  ask  the  same  old  questions  mankind  has 
always  been  asking. 

IV.  One  Word  Mom:,  pp.  472-474 

This  was  the  epilogue  to  Men  and  Women.  Those  two 
volumes  contained,  as  published,  50  other  poems  ^  and  this 
epilogue  —  hence  usually  spoken  of  as  51  poems.  One 
Word  More  is  really  a  dedication  of  the  two  volumes  to 
Mrs.  Browning.  At  its  head  stands  To  E.  B.  B.  (Elizabeth 
Barrett  Browning)  18 j^.    It  is  signed  R.  B.  at  the  end. 

I.    The  Metre. 

a.  One  Word  More  is  written  in  trochaic  pentameter,  i.e. 

five-foot  lines,  the  normal  foot  being  of  two  syllables  with 

the  accent  on  the  first  syllable.     Thus  e.g.  the  first  line  is 

regular : 

There  they  1  4re,  my  |  fif-ty  |  men  and  |  w6m-en. 

h.  The  usual  English  blank  verse,  or  ^^ heroic"  verse,  is 
iambic  pentameter,  i.e.  each  line  of  five  feet,  the  normal  foot 
being  of  two  syllables,  accented  on  the  second  syllable. 
Thus  e.g.  a  regular  line  from  Clean :  ^ 

They  give  |  thy  let  |  ter  to  |  me  e  |  ven  n6w. 

(i)  The  five-foot  iambic  blank  verse  is  that  in  which  the 
greatest  poetry  in  the  English  language  is  written,  —  the 

^  The  larger  part  of  them  now  distributed  in  the  collected  works  under 
other  headings,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out.  See  Browning's  note,  p. 
472,  bottom  of  I  St  column. 

»  P.  467,  1.  78. 


ONE  WORD  MORE  l6l 

major  works  of  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Tennyson,  Browning, 
and  many  others.  (2)  But  the  regular  line,  with  five  feet 
and  every  other  syllable  stressed,  would  become  intolerably 
mechanical  and  monotonous.  Hence  there  have  arisen,  for 
the  sake  of  melody  and  flexibility,  a  great  variety  of  sub- 
stitutions ^  in  the  Hne. 

c.  Similarly,  in  handling  five-foot  trochaic.  Browning 
practices  some  substitution,  but  not  with  anywhere  near 
the  freedom  which  he  and  other  masters  use  in  handling 
five-foot  iambic. 

d.  One  Word  More  is  the  largest  piece  of  five-foot  trochaic 
in  the  English  language.  Lines  of  five-foot  trochaic  are 
found  :  e.g.  in  Tennyson's  Vision  of  Sin  and  his  Ode  on  the 
Death  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  But  this  of  Browning's 
is  the  only  piece  of  any  considerable  length  in  this  metre 
in  English.  Perhaps  p.  473,  1.  76,  may  refer  to  the  unique- 
ness of  the  metre :  ^ 

"Lines  I  write  the  first  time  and  the  last  time." 

e.  It  appears  that  in  Bohemian  poetry,  the  usual  five-foot 
line  is  trochaic,  just  as  in  English  the  usual  is  iambic.  At  least 
that  is  what  I  understand  Omond  to  mean  when  he  says  :^ 

"In  Bohemian  literature,  I  understand,  falling  rhj^thm  is  as 
natural  as  rising  with  us ;  the  metre  of  One  Word  More  is  nor- 
mal, that  of  Paradise  Lost  exotic." 

1  This  matter  of  the  substitution  of  other  feet  for  the  iambic,  along  with 
the  other  technicahties  of  this  verse,  is  too  long  to  discuss  here.  The  reader 
is  referred  to  any  standard  works  on  English  Metre,  but  especially  to  Mayor's 
Chapters  on  English  Metre  (2d  ed.  1901),  where  there  is  a  careful  inquiry 
into  the  usage  of  the  best  masters. 

2  The  whole  passage  (section  xrn),  however,  probably  refers  to  the  nature 
and  general  style  of  the  poem. 

'  T.  S.  Omond,  A  Study  of  Metre,  London,  1903,  p.  64.  Omond  through- 
out discards  the  usual  terminology,  and  calls  feet  "periods"  —  those  accented 
on  the  first  part  "falling  rhythm,"  accented  on  the  latter  part  "rising 
rhythm." 


l62  BROWNING  STUDIES 

2.   Notes. 

a.  Two  of  the  footnotes  in  the  Globe  Edition  need  a 
little  modification.     Both  refer  to  RafaeFs  sonnets : 

P.  472,  1.  33,  "Rafael  made  a  century  of  sonnets." 

Note  2,  "There  is  no  reason  to  believe  this  to  be  the 
fact.'' 
P.  472,  1.  54,  "You  and  I  will  never  read  that  volume." 

Note  8,  "Really  a  book  of  drawings,  not  sonnets." 
The  Editor's  assertions  are  too  sweeping : 
(i)  It  is  supposed  that  the  book  of  Rafael's  kept  by  Guido 
Reni  and  lost  after  his  death  contained  drawings. 

(2)  But  it  is  known  that  Rafael  wrote  some  three  or 
four  love-sonnets  on  the  back  of  sketches,  and  these  are 
still  preserved.     One  of  them  is  in  the  British  Museum. 

(3)  It  may  be  that  similarly  the  100  drawings  in  the  book 
lost  had  each  one  a  sonnet  on  the  back,  —  that  Browning 
had  some  information  that  this  was  the  case,  or  guessed 
that  it  might  be  so. 

b.  The  following  notes  in  addition  to,  or  in  completion 
of,  those  in  the  Globe  Edition : 

P.  472,  1.  33,  Rafael  (in  EngUsh  more  often  Raphael) j 
famous  painter,  born  1483,  died  1520 ;  century,  100,  —  now 
narrowed  down  to  a  measure  of  time  but  formerly  used  for 
100  of  anything.^ 

1.  37,  these,  the  Madonnas ;  but  one,  supply  might  view. 

1.  38,  Who  that  one  ?  Browning  refers  to  the  story  popu- 
larly told  of  Rafael's  attachment  for  a  baker's  daughter 
in  Rome.  The  story  rests  on  slight  foundations,  if  any. 
Her  name  is  given  as  Margherita,  and  the  painting  of  which 
she  is  supposed  to  be  the  original  is  in  the  Barberini  Palace 

1  Thus  a  Roman  legion  was  divided  into  centuries  of  soldiers,  Shakespeare 
(Cymbeline,  IV.  ii.  391)  has  "a  century  of  prayers,"  and  we  still  say  "a 
century-run"  made  e.g.  on  a  bicycle. 


ONE  WORD  MORE  163 

in  Rome.  It  is  signed  by  Rafael  on  a  bracelet  worn  by 
the  figure.  Since  about  1750,  the  picture  has  been  called 
La  Fornarina  {i.e.  *'The  Bakeress").  The  portrait  also 
named  La  Fornarina,  in  the  Uffizi  Gallery  in  Florence,  is 
not  by  Rafael  but  by  Sebastian  del  Piombo  (1485-1547), 
and  does  not  resemble  the  face  in  Rafael's  painting  in 
the  Barberini  Palace.  The  same  should  be  said  of  another 
La  Fornarina  by  the  same  Sebastian  in  the  Old  Museum, 
Berlin. 

1.  50,  San  SistOj  Saint  Sixtus  the  Martyr  (Sixtus  II, 
elected  Bishop  of  Rome  Aug.  31st,  257,  beheaded  Aug.  6th, 
258,  in  the  persecution  under  the  Emperor  Valerian) ; 
he  names  sl  Madonna,  i.e.  it  is  named  from  him  the  Madonna 
di  San  Sisto,  the  Sistine  Madonna,  because  it  was  painted 
as  an  altarpiece  for  the  Church  of  San  Sisto  at  Piacenza 
and  has  in  it  a  figure  representing  St.  Sixtus  in  an  attitude 
of  adoration  (at  the  left  as  you  face  the  picture),  —  it  is  now 
in  the  Royal  Gallery  in  Dresden ;  Foligno,  sl  town  in  Central 
Italy,  —  the  Madonna  of  Foligno  is  now  in  the  Vatican. 

1.  51.  The  picture  referred  to  is  in  the  Pitti  Palace  at 
Florence  and  represents  the  Madonna  appearing  to  a 
votary  in  a  vision.    It  is  called  the  Madonna  del  Granduca. 

1.  52.  The  picture  called  La  Belle  Jardiniere,  in  the  Louvre 
in  Paris,  shows  the  Madonna  seated  in  a  garden  among 
lilies. 

1.  55,  Guido  Reni,  eminent  Italian  painter,  born  1575, 
died  1642. 

1.  60,  Dante  (born  1265,  died  132 1)  gives  an  account  of 
this  incident  in  the  Vita  Nuova,  xxxv. 

1.  61,  Beatrice,  Beatrice  Portinari,  who  was  idealized  by 
Dante  until  she  became  the  centre  of  his  poetic  inspiration. 

P.  473,  1.  13,  Bice,  contraction  for  Beatrice,  used  affec- 
tionately as  a  diminutive  or  nickname. 


l64  BROWNING  STUDIES 

I.  29,  Heaven's  gift  etc.  —  earth  mars  Heaven's  gift,  takes 
something  away  from  it. 

II.  30  sqq.  refer  to  Moses'  smiting  the  rock  for  water 
(Ex.  17  :  1-7,  Num.  20 :  i-ii),  and  the  implied  comparison 
is  to  an  artist's  serving  an  ungrateful  world. 

1.  51,  Egypt's  flesh-pots,  in  the  murmuring  of  the  Hebrews 
against  Moses  (Ex.  16 :  2,  3). 

1.  53,  Sinai-forehead's  cloven  brilliance,  when  Moses 
received  the  Law,  may  refer  to  the  lightning  on  the  fore- 
head of  the  mountain  (Ex.  19 : 9,  16,  18)  or  to  the  shining 
of  Moses'  face  when  he  came  down  (Ex.  34 :  29,  30). 

1.  57,  Jethro's  daughter,  Moses'  wife  Zipporah  (Ex.  2 :  16, 
21,  cf.  3:  i). 

I.  58,  The  ^Ethiopian  bondslave,  another  wife  of  Moses 
(Num.  12  :  i),  not  so  well  known  as  Zipporah. 

P.  474, 1.  4,  missal-marge,  margin  on  the  page  of  a  missal, 
i.e.  a  book  containing  the  Mass  for  regular  and  for  special 
occasions. 

II.  23-35.  They  saw  the  new  moon  in  Florence,  saw  it 
grow  into  a  full  moon ;  then  they  came  to  London,  and  see 
it  now  in  the  last  quarter  there. 

1.  27,  Fiesole,  a  town  on  a  hill  near  Florence,  readily  seen 
from  the  city.     This  is  why  the  new  moon  came 
"Drifted^  over  Fiesole  by  twilight." 

I.  29,  Samminiato,  San  Miniato,  a  famous  church  in 
Florence.  Cf .  Giovambattista,^  i.e.  Giovanni  Battista  (John 
Baptist). 

II.  36  sqq.  This  myth  in  many  forms  is  woven  into 
Literature.    Cf.  Keats'  Endymion. 

*  Passive  participle  modifying  she  (1.  28),  —  in  the  same  construction 
as  the  active  participle  curving  (1.  26). 
'  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  p.  664, 1. 13. 


ONE  WORD  MORE  165 

1.  39,  mythos  (Gk.  tiv6o<i)^  a  speech,  a  story  (at  first,  a 
true  story) ;  then  a  myth. 

1.  42,  Zoroaster,  founder  of  the  ancient  Persian  religion, 
which  is  spoken  of  as  Zoroastrianism ;  it  survives  (in  a 
modified  form,  no  doubt)  as  the  religion  of  the  Parsees 
in  India.  It  is  impossible  to  get  any  definite  informa- 
tion as  to  when  he  lived.  It  was  probably  icxx)  years  B.C. 
or  more. 

1.  43,  Galileo,  an  Italian  astronomer,  born  1564,  died  1642. 

I.  44,  Dumb  to  Homer,  cf.  the  Hymn  to  Diana  in  the 
Iliad,  XXI ;  dumb  to  Keats,  cf .  his  Endymion.  The  point 
is  that  the  moon  in  love  with  a  mortal  might  turn  and  show 
him  what  not  even  those  most  interested  in  the  moon  — 
Zoroaster,  Galileo,  Homer,  Keats  —  have  ever  seen. 

II.  45  sqq.,  speculation  as  to  what  the  other  side  of  the 
moon  might  be  Hke,  if  she  turned  round  for  a  mortal  whom 
she  loved.  Beginning  with  1.  63,  the  poem  goes  on  to  make 
two  applications  of  this  figure :  (i)  11.  63-66,  Browning  or 
any  man  has  "two  soul-sides"  one  of  which  is  shown  only 
to  a  woman  whom  he  loves ;  (2)  11.  66-76,  Browning  does 
see  the  other  side  of  Mrs.  Browning's  personality,  —  he 
stands  with  the  world  and  praises  that  side  which  all  see, 
but  also  he  passes  around  to  the  other  side  and  sees  her  soul 
as  the  world  never  sees  it. 

11.  51  sqq.,  at  Mt.  Sinai  (Ex.  24:1-11,  especially  vss. 
9-1 1). 

I.  56,  the  bodied  heaven,  a  phrase  adapted  from  Ex.  24 :  10, 
"as  it  were  the  body  of  heaven  in  his  clearness."  "The 
body  of  heaven"  was  the  sky,  which  in  ancient  days  was 
supposed  to  be  a  substantial  thing  —  "the  firmament." 

II.  77-80,  an  illustration  of  what  in  Rhetoric  is  technically 
called  Chiasmus  (Gk.  %fcao-/A09,  a  placing  crosswise,  —  de- 
rived ultimately  from  the  letter  x) .    If  we  yoke  up  the  lines 


l66  BROWNING  STUDIES 

as  they  grammatically  go,  we  shall  see  the  crossing,  i.e.  one 
statement  is  11.  77  and  79,  the  other  is  11.  78  and  80  —  thus : 

'^Oh,  their  Rafael  of  the  dear  Madonnas, 
rOh,  their  Dante  of  the  dread  Inferno, 
l\Wrote  one  song  —  and  in  my  brain  I  sing  it, 
vDrew  one  angel  —  borne,  see,  on  my  bosom !" 

3.   The  argument  in  the  poem. 

Section  i.  Browning  dedicates  the  50  poems  in  Men  and 
Women  to  Mrs.  Browning  —  she  has  his  heart  already  — 
let  her  have  his  brain  also,  i.e.  let  her  have  these  poems,  the 
product  of  his  brain. 

Sections  n-vii.  Cases  of  men  who  have  done,  or  under- 
taken to  do,  something  out  of  their  usual  line  for  one  they 
love  most,  —  something  they  wouldn't  try  to  do  for  the 
pubUc. 

Section  viii.  Statement  of  what  is  the  point  in  the 
preceding  illustrations. 

Sections  ix-xi.  Discussion  of  the  reason  why  a  man 
wishes  to  do  as  in  the  cases  cited,  —  the  reason  being  that 
the  public  mars  the  fineness  of  a  man's  doing  and  he  has 
to  sustain  toward  them  a  fixed  attitude  and  does  not  really 
make  his  best  known.  Consequently,  when  he  does  want 
to  express  his  best  to  one  whom  he  loves,  he  feels  like  adopt- 
ing a  different  vehicle  from  that  used  in  dealing  with  the 
world.  Further  illustrations,  these  being  from  Moses' 
experience  with  the  Hebrew  people. 

Sections  xii-xiv.  Application  of  the  foregoing,  i.e. 
of  the  instincts  and  principles  discussed,  to  Browning's 
attitude  toward  Mrs.  Browning.  He  is  unable  to  turn  to 
another  form  of  art  for  her  sake  to  express  his  love,  —  he 
can  only  write  verse.  But  with  wealth  of  illustrations  he 
shows  that  a  man  with  only  one  artistic  ability  may  use  it 


ONE  WORD  MORE  167 

in  a  way  to  him  unique,  for  a  particular  purpose.  So 
Browning  writes  now,  as  never  before  and  never  again,  — 
the  poem  being  this  One  Word  More. 

Sections  xv-xviii.  A  figure  from  the  moon  and  what  a 
man  might  see  if  she  really  loved  him,  as  in  the  classical 
myth.  So  with  a  personality,  only  love  really  knows  it. 
Mrs.  Browning  knows  Browning^  because  of  their  love,  and 
for  the  same  reason  he  knows  her.^  Each  sees  in  the 
other's  nature  what  is  never  shown  to  the  world. 

Section  xix.  Mrs.  Browning  fulfills  for  Browning  the 
desire  which  made  Rafael  turn  from  painting  to  write 
sonnets  and  made  Dante  turn  from  poetry  to  draw  an 
angel. 

4.  The  charm  of  the  poem  is  elusive,  but  none  the  less  real, 
and  is,  indeed,  rather  haunting.  We  come  back  to  One 
Word  More  scores  of  times,  and  it  is  always  new  and  ex- 
quisite. The  charm  may  be  due  partly  to  the  unusual 
metre,  partly  to  the  fact  that  the  poem  is  a  mosaic  of 
allusions  to  Art  and  Literature,  so  that  it  "holds  out" 
well  no  matter  how  much  we  read  it,  partly  to  the  subtle 
truth  presented  in  it.^  The  passion  and  devotion  which 
actuate  it  also  help  in  its  hold  on  us. 

1  P.  474, 11.  23,  "Not  but  that  you  know  me !"  and  66,  "This  I  say  of  me," 
and  the  general  statement  11.  63-65. 

'  The  application  to  Mrs.  Browning  (11.  66-76)  is  naturally  longer  and 
finer,  —  how  on  the  side  of  her  personality  away  from  the  world  he  enters 
the 

"Silent  silver  lights  and  darks  imdreamed  of." 

•  Browning  had  the  ability  to  discuss,  or  at  least  to  state,  very  subtle 
facts  of  human  nature.  For  another  example  in  a  short  poem,  see  Two  in 
the  Campagna  (pp.  250,  251). 


VIII 

SAUL  AND  IN  A  BALCONY 

I.  Saul,  pp.  239-245 

Published  as  follows :  The  first  nine  sections  in  Dramatic 
Romances  and  Lyrics,  1845 ;  the  whole  poem  as  now  in 
vol.  II  of  Men  and  Women,  1855.  Although  ten  years 
elapsed  between  the  appearance  of  the  first  part  and  that  of 
the  remainder  of  the  poem,  the  reader  does  not  detect  it  in 
passing  from  section  ix  into  the  following  sections.  The 
discussion  of  Saul  is  put  at  this  point  in  the  course  because 
more  than  half  of  the  poem  belongs  to  Men  and  Women, 
and  because,  though  one  of  the  most  widely  read  of  Brown- 
ing's poems,  it  is  also  one  of  the  most  difficult. 

I.*  The  Suggestion  on  which  the  Poem  is  Founded. 

This  is  found  in  i  Sam.  16 :  14-23.  It  is  the  account  of 
SauFs  illness  and  David's  playing  the  harp  before  him. 
The  passage  should  be  carefully  read  before  reading  the 
poem. 

2.   The  Purpose  of  the  Poem. 

a.  Men  sometimes  wonder  whether  anything  is  worth 
while.  They  lose  interest  in  life.  It  all  seems  "weary, 
stale,  flat  and  unprofitable."  Some  of  you  may  have 
passed  through  this  experience.  Many  of  you  will  have  to. 
Why  live?  Why  struggle?  What  does  it  all  amount  to? 
"  Surely  every  man  walketh  in  a  vain  show."  Everything 
is  dust  and  ashes,  and  life  is  just  a  wretched  "mess,"  a 
game  "not  worth  the  candle." 

168 


SAUL  169 

h.  Browning  takes  Saul  as  a  type  of  those  seized  with 
such  despair.  Or  perhaps  SauFs  case  is  too  extreme  to  be 
typical.  Saul's  illness  is  described  in  the  early  history  of 
the  Hebrews,  according  to  the  time,  as  due  to  seizure  by 
an  evil  spirit.  Browning  interprets  it  as  a  lethargy,  —  a  loss 
of  all  interest  in  life,  which  condition  paralyzes  all  effort  of 
mind  and  body.  Why  make  any  effort?  Nothing  is  of 
worth.  Men  who  think  there  is  something  of  worth  in 
life  are  deceived.    Let  it  all  go. 

c.  What  can  stimulate  a  man  like  that  to  take  an  interest 
in  life  again  ?    What  really  makes  life  worth  while  ? 

d.  David,  in  the  songs  given  him  by  Browning,  answers 
the  question,  (i)  It  is  the  following  day^  when  David 
relates  how  he  went  to  Saul  and  what  he  said  as  he  sang. 
(2)  David,  as  he  tells  it,  is  back  with  his  sheep,  in  the  narrow 
valley  of  the  Kidron,  a  brook  near  Jerusalem ;  he  looks  out 
toward  the  south  to  the  city  of  Hebron,  on  the  mountain 
in  the  distance.^  (3)  David  tells  how  he  came  at  the 
summons,  was  met  by  Abner,  commander  of  SauFs  army 
(i  Sam.  26 :  5),  how  he  kissed  Abner  (the  oriental  fashion), 
then  of  his  experience  when,  after  pra3dng,  he  entered  Saul's 
tent. 

3.  Some  Details  which  David  Gives  Incidentally. 

Such  details  are  vivid  and  interesting. 

a.  As  to  Saul  himself :  (i)  his  huge  figure^  (see  i  Sam. 
9:1,  2,  and  10:  23)  and  his  movements  when  stirred  by 
the  singing ;  *  (2)  his  position  among  the  people.    We  need 

*  P.  243,  11.  7-13.  The  whole  of  section  xiv,  after  the  first  half  line,  is 
parenthetical  and  refers  to  the  situation  in  which  he  finds  himself  the  follow- 
ing morning.     Cf.  also  p.  245,  section  xix,  especially  11.  12  sqq. 

«P.  243,  U.  9,  11,12. 

•  P.  240, 11.  4-6 ;  cf.  1.  42  and  p.  243, 11.  30,  31. 

*P.  240,  11.  42  sqq.;  p.  241,  11.  40  sqq.;  p.  243,  11.  13  sqq.  Notice  es- 
pecially p.  243, 11.  33-40. 


170  BROWNING  STUDIES 

to  revise  our  usual  notion  of  the  circumstances.  We  must 
not  be  misled  by  what  we  associate  with  the  word  ^'king." 
Browning's  picture  is  more  true  to  history.  The  Hebrews 
had  gotten  a  foothold  in  the  country  and  were  struggling 
to  maintain  it.  Saul,  chosen  as  their  first  king,  was  practi- 
cally a  fighting  chief.  Hence  David  finds  him,  not  in  a 
palace,  but  in  his  camp. 

b.  The  tent  (described  somewhat  in  section  iii)  is  of 
skins  ^  or  else  of  goats'  hair.^  In  either  case  it  is  dark 
inside;  hence  David,  coming  from  the  sunlight  outside, 
is  unable  to  make  out  things  until  his  eyes  become  accus- 
tomed to  the  gloom  —  he  makes  out  the  main  tent-prop  and 
the  figure  of  Saul  before  the  sunbeam  gets  in  through  the 
roof  and  shows  him  Saul  clearly.^ 

c.  The  harpstrings  in  the  days  of  David  were  of  catgut 
or  even  of  vegetable  fibre.  The  intense  heat  would  cause 
them  to  shrink,  and  so  they  might  ^'snap  'neath  the  stress 
of  the  noontide."  Hence  the  lilies  (in  section  v,  cf.  section 
ii),  twined  round  the  strings  to  keep  them  moist.  The 
observation  that  there  was  no  danger  that  heat  would 
cause  the  strings  to  snap  would  hold  true  only  if  metal 
strings  were  used,  and  metal  strings  are  later.  Some 
types  of  harp  are  still  equipped  wholly  or  in  part  with  gut 
strings. 

d.  Many  details  of  customs  you  will  notice  in  the  songs : 
e.g.  in  section  vii,  marriage,  funeral,  and  liturgical  customs ; 
in  section  viii  (11.  42-44)  and  section  xv  (11.  16-27),  the 
dress  of  the  chief ;  in  section  ix  (p.  240, 11.  49  sqq.),  hunting 

1  Tents  at  a  very  early  period  were  probably  of  skins.  Traces  of  such 
use  of  skins  are  found  in  the  Old  Testament,  e.g.  Ex.  26 :  14. 

2  Early  in  the  history  of  the  Hebrews,  goats'  hair  was  spun  and  woven 
by  the  women  for  such  uses.  See  Ex.  35  :  26,  also  36 :  14.  Such  tents  were 
dark-colored,  cf.  Song  of  Solomon  1:5. 

3  P.  240,  11.  2-6. 


SAUL  171 

and  food;  again  in  section  ix  (p.  241,  11.  7-1 1),  the  ofl&ce 
for  the  dying;  in  section  xiii  (11.  43  sqq.),  methods  of 
commemorating  the  deeds  of  the  great. 

4.   Plan  of  Versification. 

a.  The  verse  is  rhymed  five-foot  anapestic,  i.e.  the  normal 
line  is  made  up  of  five  periods,  each  composed  of  three 
syllables  with  the  accent  on  the  last  syllable :  thus  e.g. 
That  extends  |  to  the  sec  |  ond  encl6s  |  ure,  I  groped  |  my  way  on/ 
or 

The   submis  |  sion  of  mdn's  |  nothing  -  per  |  feet   to   God's  |  all- 
complete.* 

But  the  verse  is  used  with  great  freedom,  as  anapestic 
verse  is  by  all  skillful  poets,^  and  the  completely  regular 
lines  are  not  much  more  than  half  the  whole  number.  The 
variations,  as  Browning  handles  the  verse,  consist  chiefly 
in  dropping  one  of  the  unaccented  syllables  at  the  beginning 
of  a  line,  or  in  any  other  foot,  except  the  last.^ 

b.  Browning  has  worked  out  a  device  for  emphasizing 
certain  words.  The  plan  is  effective.  The  words  strike 
the  reader,  whether  he  stops  to  analyze  how  it  is  done  or 
not.     This  will  be  noticed  at  the  end  of  section  iii : 

"Then  a  sunbeam,  that  burst  thro'  the  tent-roof,  showed  Saul." 

At  the  end  of  section  vi : 

"But  I  stopped  here :  for  here  in  the  darkness  Saul  groaned." 

And  at  the  end  of  section  ix : 

1  P.  239, 1.  66.  2  P.  244, 1.  3. 

3  See  Joseph  B.  Mayor,  Handbook  of  Modern  English  Metre,  Cambridge, 
1903,  Chapter  V. 

*  Sometimes  there  is  an  additional  unaccented  syllable  after  the  close  of 
the  last  foot,  as  e.g.  p.  243, 11.  3,  4.  In  at  least  one  case,  Browning  has  four 
syllables  in  a  foot,  —  p.  241 , 1.  6,  last  foott 


172 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


"Brought  to  blaze  on  the  head  of  one  creature  —  King  Saul !" 

There  actually  are  in  each  of  these  lines  only  four  feet, 
and  the  time  of  two  feet  is  given  to  the  last  foot.  Hence 
the  emphasis  on  "showed  Saul,"  ''Saul  groaned,''  and 
''King  Saul,"  —  i.e.  the  mind  and  voice  involuntarily 
slow  up  and  give  to  the  words  the  additional  beat  which 
the  rhythm  requires.^ 

5.  The  Steps  by  which  David  brings  Saul  back  to  an  In- 
terest in  Life. 

David  shows  him,  in  an  ascending  scale,  what  is  worth 
living  for. 

a.  David  plays  first  the  tunes  that  appeal  to  brutes 
(sections  v  and  vi).  The  animals  below  man  are  many 
of  them  very  susceptible  to  music.  David  is  beginning 
at  the  foimdation  —  not  argument  nor  the  content  of  song, 
but  sheer  sound  —  that  is  what  attracts  the  lower  animals. 

Will  this  soothe  and  stimulate  Saul?  No.  These  tunes 
which  stir  the  lower  animals  provoke  no  sign  from  Saul. 

b.  Then  David  sings  the  everyday  interests  of  human 
life.  This  is  his  second  move  (sections  vn  and  viii). 
These  are  the  things  that  occupy  the  attention  of  most 
people. '  Life's  hours  are  largely  taken  up  with  this  round 
of  things  — our  conversation  is  chiefly  about  them.  The 
points  sung  about  are  the  things  of  importance  in  the 
average  life.  Each  point  is  typical:  The  reapers'  song 
(typical  of  the  social  gathering),  the  lament  for  the  dead, 
the  marriage  chant,  the  organization  of  government  ^  (or 

^  Such  devices  are  common  in  poetry,  and  are  used  instinctively  by  good 
artists.  The  omission  of  one  of  the  syllables  of  a  foot,  allowing  the  time  to 
fill  up  the  space, is  of  a  similar  sort. 

2  Or  do  the  lines  (p.  240  11.  36-38)  refer  to  the  building  of  a  material 
structure,  as  e.g.  in  connection  with  the  walls  of  a  city?  The  uncertainty 
arises  from  our  inability  to  determine  whether  Browning  meant  us  to  take 


SAUL  173 

of  social  institutions  in  general),  the  Levites*  chorus  as 
they  go  up  to  the  altar  (typical  of  the  place  which  worship 
occupies  in  life).  The  order  is  curious:  we  would  think 
the  lament  for  the  dead  would  be  last.  But  the  person 
described  in  these  different  songs  is  not  the  same  man. 
The  observer  J  whose  life  touches  all  these  things  described 
in  the  songs,  continues  the  same  man  —  you  or  I.  And  all 
these  things  are  mingled  just  so  in  our  living,  i.e.  we  come 
in  contact  with  joy  and  sorrow  clb^p  together,  —  we  are 
interested  in  feast,  funeral,  wedding,  politics,  religion  —  and 
these  often  in  incongruous  closeness  to  each  other.  Such 
are  the  things  in  which  people  in  general  are  interested  — 
the  things  that  stimulate  our  thinking  and  our  conversation. 

Will  these  songs  stir  Saul?  These  songs,  rehearsing  the 
usual  events  of  interest  in  life,  call  out  from  Saul  only  a 
groan  and  a  movement  of  the  head. 

c.  How  can  David  stimulate  Saul  further,  now  that  he  has 
attracted  his  attention  ?    David's  third  move  is  two-fold : 

(i)  He  sings  of  the  sheer  joy  of  living  (section  rx,  from 
the  beginning  to  p.  241,  1.  4).  If  we  are  well  and  normal, 
just  being  alive,  tingling  with  life,  ought  to  be  its  own  re- 
ward. The  joy  of  Hfe  is  set  forth  as  it  would  appeal  to  a 
red-blooded  man  of  Saul's  time. 

(2)  David  points  to  the  greatness  of  Saul's  life  in  partic- 
ular (the  rest  of  section  rx),  —  how  much  centres  in  him, 
how  great  is  his  opportunity  —  therefore  how  great  his 
incentive  to  live  the  fullest  life. 

"buttress  an  arch"  (1.  37)  literally  or  figuratively.  I  used  to  think  that  it 
referred  to  the  marriage,  "our  friends"  (1.  38)  being  the  pair  just  married. 
But  the  punctuation  forbids  that  and  shows  that  this  is  another  indepen- 
dent song  of  the  series.  The  fact  that  the  "arch"  is  something  to  protect 
the  friends  of  those  who  build  it  leads  me  to  think  that  the  arch  is  a  system 
of  government,  the  builders  statesmen ;  or  else  that  it  stands  for  civilization 
and  society,  in  which  we  all  are  builders. 


174  BROWNING  STUDIES 

.-» 

This  strikes  into  Saul,  especially  the  shouting  of  his  own 
name  at  the  end,  and  he  releases  himself,  letting  go  the  cross- 
support  on  the  tent-pole  to  which  he  had  clung  (section  x). 
His  movement  is  like  the  sliding  of  snow  from  a  mountain 
in  the  warmth  of  spring.^ 

d.  David  is  at  a  loss  now  what  to  sing  next  to  stimulate 
Saul  to  live  and  do  his  work  in  the  world  (sections  xl  and 
xn).  But  presently  thoughts  develop  which  came  to  him 
when  he  was  with  his  sheep,  and  he  sings  now  (section  xiii), 
saying  that  the  real  greatness  of  Saul  is  not  in  living  a 
mere  mortal  life,  but  in  his  great  deeds  which  will  live  after 
him  —  be  recorded  on  the  rock's  face  and  on  cedar  tablets 
and  in  papyrus  rolls,  and  hand  his  name  and  fame  to 
posterity.  This  is  one  of  the  strongest  desires  of  men, 
that  their  work  shall  not  perish  with  them.  Surely  this 
will  rouse  Saul  to  see  that  Hfe  is  good  and  to  be  eager  to 
live  it.     Such  is  the  fourth  step. 

This  appeal  restores  Saul  (section  xv)  to  "his  old  motions 
and  habitudes  kingly."  He  is  coming  back  to  a  realization 
that  it  is  worth  while  to  live,  to  achieve,  to  rule. 

e.  What  shall  David  sing  next  to  bring  Saul  completely 
into  fullness  of  life  ?  He  drops  the  harp  with  which  he  had 
sung  up  to  this  time,  and  breaks  out  into  exhortation 
(section  xvi,  "No  harp  more  —  no  song  more!  out- 
broke— "),  the  fifth  step.  The  rush  of  truth  as  to  what 
makes  Hfe  most  worth  living  comes  with  some  confusion 
in  sections  xvn  and  xvlil,  consistently  with  David's  en- 
thusiasm as  it  is  borne  in  upon  him.  If  set  forth  in  too 
orderly  a  way,  it  would  not  reflect  the  surging  tide  in  David's 

1  P.  241, 11.  29-40,  an  elaborate  description  of  the  sliding  of  the  snow  from 
the  mountain.  This  interrupts  the  account  of  what  Saul  did,  —  the  account 
which  begins  near  the  middle  of  1.  27  and  is  continued  near  the  middle  of  1. 
40.  Lines  29-40  unfortunately  distract  attention  from  Saul's  movements, 
instead  of  making  clearer  what  he  did. 


SAUL  175 

thoughts.  It  deals  with  things  of  supreme  value,  it  is 
truth  of  the  highest  life  in  man.  It  is  grounded  in  the 
infinite  love  of  God,  which  must  be  a  fact  or  else  we  exceed 
God,  for  we  love.  We  find  that  God  is  infijiitely  beyond 
us  in  everything  else.  It  must  be,  then,  that  there  is  an 
infinitude  of  love  to  match  the  infinitude  of  the  rest  of  His 
nature.  And  this  infinite  love  of  God  must  issue  in  three 
things,  and  these  are  essential  if  man  is  to  come  to  the  ful- 
fillment of  the  spiritual  life : 

(i)  The  immortality  of  man,  not  merely  in  his  works, 
but  the  immortality  of  his  living  self. 

(2)  A  way  of  redemption  whereby  God  suffers  for  man, 
even  as  we  are  wilHng  to  suffer  for  those  we  love. 

(3)  A  ''human  fife  of  God"  in  the  Messiah,  the 
Christ,  so  that  God  may  have  perfect  sympathy  with 
the  human  struggle:  this  is  the  only  way  man  can  be 
saved. 

Each  of  these  strands  is  woven  in  more  or  less  several 
times,  but  after  all  there  is  progress  in  the  song.  The  fact 
that  God  infinitely  surpasses  us  in  every  way,  as  far  as 
we  can  see  in  His  universe,  is  laid  down  first.^  Then  the 
necessity  of  believing  that  God  is  not  inferior  to  us  in  the 
one  element  Love  is  strongly  set  forth.^  The  love  of  God 
issuing  in  some  redemptive  plan  comes  next,^  such  re- 
demption involving  the  immortaUty  of  man.^  The  love 
of  God  compelling  Him  to  suffer  for  man,  else  He  is  inferior 
to  us  who  suffer  for  one  another,  is  then  taken  up.^  That 
this  makes  necessary  the  coming  of  the  Divine  into  a  human 
experience,  or  the  union  of  Divine  and  human  in  one  ex- 

*  P.  243, 1. 46-p.  244, 1.  4.    Notice  especially  p.  243, 11.  51-58. 

'  P.  244, 11.  5-20,  especially  11.  10-20. 

'  P.  244, 11.  21-36,  especially  U.  27-33. 

«  P.  244, 11.  28,  34-36. 

6  P.  244, 11.  37-54,  especially  11.  49-53. 


176  BROWNING  STUDIES 

perience,  is  the  last  point  brought  forward.^  The  im- 
mortality of  man  appears  also  in  these  closing  lines  of  the 
song. 

Such  words  as  these  in  sections  xvii  and  xvin,  put  in 
the  mouth  of  David,  while  more  definite  and  theological 
than  the  Old  Testament  Messianic  prophecy  (especially 
of  so  early  a  time  as  1000  B.C.),  are  not  inconsistent  with 
the  longing  of  the  Hebrews  and  their  Messianic  hope,  at 
least  as  it  developed  in  later  centuries  of  their  history. 

6.    The  Conclusion. 

Section  xix  tells  how  the  realization  of  the  great  things 
of  the  spiritual  hfe,  which  had  come  upon  David  in  his  last 
song,  made  him  aware  of  the  living  world  of  the  unseen  as 
he  went  home,  and  how  even  next  morning  he  saw  a  new 
meaning  in  all  Nature.  The  point  in  this  section  is  that, 
when  a  man  recognizes  the  presence  of  the  redemptive  power 
in  the  world,  he  sees  the  world  as  he  never  saw  it  before. 

II.  In  a  Balcony,  pp.  475-486 

Published  in  vol.  II  of  Men  and  Women,  1855. 

1 .  The  Nature  of  the  Poem. 

It  is  simply  conversation.  There  is  only  a  little  action. 
The  dramatic  motives  are  strong,  but  the  piece  is  in  no 
sense  a  drama,  and  was  never  called  a  drama  by  Browning. 
The  piece  is  made  up  of  one  scene.  A  few  directions  are 
put  in  to  make  plain  the  going  in  and  coming  out. 

2.  The  Place. 

The  conversation  takes  place  in  a  balcony  overlooking 
the  street.^ 

a.  You  have  often  seen  on  a  house  such  a  balcony, 
projecting  over  the  street  or  lawn  (perhaps  on  top  of  the 

^  P.  244, 11.  55-62,  especially  11.  57-62.  2  p,  ^^^^  y^  y_g^ 


IN  A  BALCONY  177 

porch),  and  entered  by  doors  from  the  second  floor,  —  a 
place  to  sit  in  summer.  Many  apartment  houses  have 
such  a  balcony  connected  with  each  suite  of  rooms. 

b.  This  particular  balcony,  as  we  see  from  the  poem, 
opens  from  the  parlors  and  banquet-room  of  the  Palace. 
To  have  the  parlors  on  what  we  call  the  second  floor  (what 
they  call  there  the  first  floor)  is  quite  common  on  the  Con- 
tinent. So  also  very  often  in  England,  in  attending  some 
social  function,  you  leave  your  wraps  down  stairs  and  are 
received  in  a  drawing-room  up  stairs. 

c.  Those  on  this  balcony  are  only  six  steps  from  where  the 
others  are.^  They  hear  the  music  ^  even  when  the  doors  are 
closed,  but  it  is  especially  noticeable  when  one  goes  in  or 
out.^  On  this  balcony  the  moon  shines.^  There  are  several 
pieces  of  statuary  here,^  also  palms  and  magnolias.* 

3.    The  Persons. 

The  persons  involved  in  the  conversation  are : 
a.  The  Queen.  We  gather  readily  from  the  conversa- 
tion these  facts :  She  is  fifty  years  old,^  thin  ^  and  already 
gray,^  sole  ruler  of  a  considerable  country  (ruler  with  even 
despotic  power  ^°).  She  married  unhappily  years  ago  and  is 
separated  from  her  husband  but  not  divorced.^^    With 

1  P.  475,  1.  46 ;   p.  476,  1.  44.  2  p,  478, 1.  40 ;  p.  486, 1.  41. 

»  p.  479,  stage  direction  following  I.  23 ;  p.  482,  stage  direction  following  1. 57. 
*  P.  481, 1.  78 ;  p.  482, 1.  57.    Cf.  p.  478, 1.  23. 

6  P.  478,  U.  31-34;  p.  482,  U.  54-56. 

«  P.  479,  11.  40-42 ;  p.  485, 11.  45-47.  The  palm  and  the  magnolia  men- 
tioned can  hardly  be  on  a  lawn  or  in  a  garden  below,  because  this  balcony  is 
over  a  street  (p.  477, 11.  7-9). 

7  P.  476, 1.  76.     Cf.  p.  479, 11.  65-68 ;  also  p.  481, 11.  36-39. 
8P.  478, 1.49;  p.  479,  U-  18,53. 

»  P.  481 , 1. 14,  cf .  11.  36-39 ;  p.  479, 1-  53. 

"  P.  477,  1.  45,  cf.  the  whole  passage  11.  39-52,  also  11.  73-75 ;  p.  486,  11. 
12  sqq.,  especially  from  1.  37  to  the  end. 

"  P.  476, 11.  65-70;  p.  481, 1.  67-p.  482, 1.  19,  especially  11.  67,  68,  79-81 
of  p.  481. 


178  BROWNING  STUDIES 

this  and  other  experiences  she  has  suffered  much/  but  has 
a  just  and  generous  nature.^  She  is  flattered  and  fawned 
upon  by  men  whose  reason  for  so  doing,  as  she  well  knows,^ 
is  to  secure  their  own  advancement,  —  she  with  a  nature 
starving^  for  real  affection  and  hardening  into  marble^  for 
the  lack  of  it,  but  a  nature  of  splendid  intensity  when  set 
on  fire.® 

b.  Norbert,  the  Prime-Minister^  of  the  Kingdom — a 
position  which  he  has  held  for  one  year  —  a  man  whose 
splendid  statesmanship  has  done  so  much  for  the  Queen 
during  this  year,^  the  greatest  thing  being  that  he  has 
succeeded  in  combining  two  states  and  fixing  the  crowns  of 
both  on  this  Queen's  head.^  He  is  frank,^°  f earless,^^  and  an 
ardent  lover .^^ 

c.  Constance,  the  Queen's  cousin,^^  young  and  beautiful,^^ 
taken  to  the  Palace  by  the. Queen ^^  some  time  ago.  Evi- 
dently Constance's  parents  are  dead,  although  that  is  not 
stated.    The  Queen  is  Constance's  guardian  in  fact,  if 

»  P.  476, 11.  65-70 ;  p.  478, 11.  49-52 ;  p.  482, 11.  6-8. 
a  P.  476, 11.  14,  15,  35,  36;  p.  478, 11.  45-94,  especially  11.  48,  49,  56,  57, 
65-69,  71-74,  79,  80;  p.  480, 11.  41-72. 

3  P.  480, 11.  14-16,  especially  1.  16.    C£.  also  U.  17  sqq. 

*  P.  478,1.  SI. 

^  P.  480, 11.  4-36,  especially  11.  7,  9,  21. 

"  See  her  whole  conversation  when  she  thinks  Norbert  loves  her. 

'  P.  475, 1.  51,  cf.  1.  52 ;  cf.  also  p.  476, 1.  27,  and  p.  480, 11.  4, 14, 15. 

8  P.  475, 1.  53 ;  p.  480, 11.  41-43 ;  p.  485, 1.  21. 

9  P.  475,  U.  53-59 ;  P-  476,  U.;i-3. 

"P.  478,  11.  2-9;  p.  479,  1.  10;  and  often.  The  "chaos  of  intrigues" 
in  which  he  has  been  involved  as  Premier  has  been  very  distasteful  to  him 
(p.  478,  11.  10-22). 

"  P.  483, 11.  28,  29 ;  and  often.    See  also  his  whole  attitude. 

"  P.  475,  U-  1-18;  p.  477, 1.  36;  p.  478, 11.  10,  II ;  and  very  often. 

"  P.  476, 11. 13,  29 ;  p.  477, 1.  20 ;  and  often.     Cf .  p.  478, 1.  72/ 

"  P.  482, 1.  22,  cf.  11.  23-25. 

"  P.  478, 11.  71-74 ;'  p.  479,  U.  18,  19,  65 ;  p.  481, 11.  21-24. 


IN  A  BALCONY  179 

not  in  legal  form.     Constance  is  politic,^  and  not  averse 
to  dissimulation.^ 

4.  The  Occasion. 

The  occasion  is  the  great  banquet^  to  celebrate  the  results 
achieved  by  Norbert's  statesmanship  during  the  past 
year.  He  is  the  centre  of  praise  and  congratulation.^ 
But  he  has  slipped  away  from  the  festivities^  for  a  moment, 
even  while  the  Queen  is  waiting  for  him  to  name  his  reward.^ 
As  the  poem  opens,  he  stands  here  now  in  the  balcony  with 
Constance. 

5.  The  Story. 

The  story  is  very  simple.  Norbert  has  wrought  so  well 
all  the  year,  not  for  gain,  not  for  honor,  but  for  love  of 
Constance,  the  Queen's  cousin.  To-night  in  his  hour  of 
triumph,  his  praise  in  every  mouth,  he  feels  sure  he  can 
ask  the  Queen  for  whatever  reward  he  will  and  it  will  be 
granted.  He  begs  Constance  to  let  him  tell  the  Queen  his 
love  for  her  cousin  and  ask  the  Queen  to  grant  him  that 
cousin's  hand  to-night.  Constance  insists  that  such  a  move 
will  disappoint  the  Queen,  make  her  angry,   and  spoil 

^  See  her  argument  in  all  the  first  four  pages.     Contrast  Norbert's  replies. 

2  See  her  whole  conduct  in  the  last  four  pages  of  the  poem,  —  her  brazen 
pretense,  her  effort  to  force  Norbert  to  pretend  that  the  Queen  has  under- 
stood correctly. 

3  P.  475,  11.  53»  54,  59-  Cf.  p.  477,  11.  26-28;  p.  478,  U.  13-16;  p.  480, 
11.  41-43 ;  p.  485, 1.  21.  For  a  while  I  was  accustomed  to  think  there  was  a 
council  also  this  evening,  in  connection  with  the  banquet.  This  was  on 
account  of  p.  477,  11.  46-48,' — supposing  that  Norbert  had  abruptly  con- 
cluded this  council  and  that  the  "one  minute's  meeting  in  the  corridor" 
was  just  now  before  the  lovers  came  out  on  the  balcony.  But  undoubtedly 
this  is  not  so.  The  council  and  the  meeting  in  the  corridor  were  at  some  other 
time,  in  the  year  past,  —  one  of  the  many  secret  interviews  and  commimi- 
cations  of  which  others  are  mentioned  in  11.  49-52,  —  all  summed  up  in  1.  53. 

*P.!475,1.  59;  p.  476,  U.  1-3. 

^  P.  477,  11.  41-44. 

•P.  475, 1.7;  p.  476, 1.4;  p.  478,  U.  41, 42;  p.  480,11.  73-76. 


l8o  .  BROWNING  STUDIES 

the  brilliant  future  which  is  open  to  Norbert  in  the  govern- 
ment. Norbert  declares  that  he  doesn't  want  his  love 
kept  secret  and  insists  upon  telling  the  Queen  now.  Con- 
stance finally  agrees,  only  insisting  upon  how  he  shall 
put  the  matter  —  she  makes  him  promise  to  begin  by  flatter- 
ing the  Queen  (contrary  to  Norbert's  inclination),  then  to 
go  on  and  tell  her  that  Constance  is  as  a  ribbon  the  Queen 
wears,  that  Constance  is  so  near  the  Queen  that  she  seems  a 
piece  of  the  Queen's  self,  and  that  therefore  he  loves  Con- 
stance, —  so  coming  to  the  point  and  asking  for  Constance's 
hand.  So  Norbert  goes  in  to  ask.^  He  follows  the  method 
insisted  upon  by  Constance  —  but  unfortunately.  Before 
he  can  get  to  the  real  point  the  Queen  jumps  to  the  con- 
clusion that  he  is  proposing  to  her.  It  is  too  good  to  be  true, 
but  she  grasps  his  love  and  appropriates  it,  and  rushes  out 
on  the  balcony  to  find  Constance  and  tell  her  about  it. 
Poor  Constance  sees  what  has  happened  but  cannot  explain, 
and  listens  to  the  Queen  going  on  about  how  beautiful  and 
wonderful  love  is,  how  she  will  get  free  from  the  husband 
who  has  been  tied  to  her  but  separated  from  her  these  many 
years,  how  much  it  all  means  in  her  life,  and  so  on.  The 
Queen  goes  back  into  the  parlors,  and  Norbert  comes  again 
on  the  balcony  to  talk  with  Constance.  In  a  few  minutes 
the  Queen  comes  out  again.  Constance  makes  a  great 
''bluff,"  trying  to  force  Norbert  to  act  as  if  the  Queen  had 
understood  aright.  But  Norbert,  all  frankness,  will  have 
none  of  it.  The  Queen  sees  her  mistake  and  is  over- 
whelmed with  humiliation  and  anger,  —  that  such  hope 
should  be  awakened  in  her,  only  to  turn  at  once  to  ashes. 
She  goes  in,  and  the  heavy  feet  of  the  guard  are  heard  com- 
ing to  place  Norbert  and  Constance  under  arrest. 

^  A  brief  interval  (p.  479,  between  11.  23  and  24),  while  Norbert  speaks 
with  the  Queen. 


IN  A   BALCONY  l8l 

The  whole  trouble  has  come  through  insincerity,  or  at 
least  through  the  lack  of  frankness  and  directness.  The 
Queen  confesses  to  Constance  that  she  thought  Norbert 
was  working  for  love  and  thought  it  was  Constance  he 
loved,  and  that  she  had  decided  to  grant  Constance's  hand 
when  he  should  ask  it.  Had  he  gone  on  as  he  wished  this 
evening,  all  would  have  been  well.  Constance's  wanting 
him  to  approach  by  flattery  and  to  present  his  request  in 
an  indirect  way  made  all  the  misunderstanding  and  disaster. 

6.    The  Excellence  of  the  Poem. 

The  excellence  of  the  poem  consists,  then,  not  in  its  plot. 
That  is  slender  and  gives  simply  the  ground  for  the  dialogue. 
The  excellence  of  the  piece  is  the  excellence  of  the  conver- 
sation. It  is  a  conversation  almost  altogether  about  love 
as  the  thing  most  worth  while.  Seldom  will  you  find  the 
matter  put  more  passionately  and  beautifully.  Norbert's 
declarations  as  to  what  love  means  are  superior  to  those  of 
either  of  the  women.  The  Queen's  are  a  close  second,  and 
Constance's  a  poor  third.  Perhaps  no  words  of  Norbert's 
are  finer  than  those  in  which  he  defines  his  attitude  toward 

life:i 

"I  count  life  just  the  stuff 
To  try  the  soul's  strength  on,  educe  the  man." 

If  I  were  obliged  to  say  which  seems  to  me  the  most  remark- 
able passage  in  the  poem,  I  would  say  the  passage  in  which 
the  Queen  describes  her  loneliness  and  heart-hunger  in  the 
midst  of  all  their  deference  and  adulation,^  and  especially 
the  closing  lines  :^ 

"There  have  been  moments,  if  the  sentinel 
Lowering  his  halbert  to  salute  the  queen, 
Had  flung  it  *  brutally  and  clasped  my  knees, 
I  would  have  stooped  and  kissed  him  with  my  soul." 

1  P.  483, 11.  28,  29.  2  P.  480,  U.  4-36. 

» P.  480, 11.  33-36.  *  i,e,  had  flung  it  down. 


IX 

A  GROUP  OF  THE  DRAMATIS  PERSONiE 

We  have  already  discussed^  a  few  of  the  shortest  poems 
which  appeared  in  Dramatis  PersoncBj  1864.  We  turn  now 
to  a  group  of  the  longer  poems  in  that  volume. 

I.  Abt  Vogler,  pp.  499,  500 

1.  Abt,  German,  meaning  abbot,  —  used  here  not  in  the 
sense  of  head  of  an  abbey,  or  monastery,  but  in  the  sense 
in  which  the  French  word  abbe  is  frequently  used,  i.e.  as 
a  title  for  an  ecclesiastic  who  is  not  engaged  in  the  regular 
Church  work,  but  instead  in  literary,  educational,  or  musi- 
cal lines.  For  such  a  man  we  use  in  English  abbe,  instead 
of  our  own  word  abbot. 

2.  George  Joseph  Vogler  was  born  in  Wurzburg,  Bavaria, 
June  15,  1749.  He  was  educated  for  the  Church,  and  was 
ordained  priest  in  Rome  in  1773.  He  opened  a  school  of 
music  at  Mannheim,  in  Baden,  in  1775.  About  1786  he 
went  to  Sweden,  and  founded  a  school  of  music  in  Stock- 
holm. He  invented  an  instrument  called  the  Orchestrion,  — 
a  compact  organ  with  four  keyboards  of  five  octaves  each 
and  a  pedal  board  of  36  keys,  the  whole  capable  of  being 
packed  into  small  space  for  transportation.  It  is  this  in- 
strument to  which  Browning  refers.^  With  this  instru- 
ment. Abbe  Vogler  travelled  extensively  and  gave  recitals, 
—  often  with  meager  success  at  first.    His  recitals  in 

1  In  Chapter  V. 

*  In  the  words:  "After  he  has  been  extemporizing  upon  the  musical  in- 
strument of  his  invention,"  placed  in  parenthesis  under  the  title. 

182 


ABT  VOGLER  183 

London  in  January,  1790,  were,  however,  received  with 
great  enthusiasm.  Returning  to  the  Continent,  he  now 
met  with  great  success  everywhere.  He  established  his 
third  school  of  mu^c  at  Darmstadt,  the  capital  of  Hesse, 
in  1807,  and  there  Weber  and  Meyerbeer  were  among  his 
pupils.    He  died  at  Darmstadt,  May  6,  1814. 

Vogler  was  Kapellmeister  {ix.  director  of  the  band  or 
orchestra,  sometimes  with  a  choir  also,  maintained  at  court) 
in  Mannheim,  Stockholm,  and  Darmstadt.  He  composed 
a  number  of  operas  (only  the  later  ones  proving  in  any 
degree  successful)  and  some  church  music.  His  Missa 
Pastoricia  (Pastoral  Mass,  Shepherds'  Mass)  is  simg  every 
Christmas  at  the  Court-Chapel  in  Vienna. 

3.  Browning  presents  Vogler  meditating  over  his  keys, 
after  extemporizing  on  his  Orchestrion : 

a.  If  he  could  only  make  music  visible,  then  what  he  has 
been  playing  would  appear  as  a  palace.  Then  he  goes  on 
to  describe  that  "palace  of  music." 

b.  Then  he  turns  his  thoughts  upon  the  creative  power 
which  the  musician  has. 

c.  But  the  music  which  he  created  —  which,  if  it  could 
be  seen  as  well  as  heard,  would  be  a  palace  —  is  gone. 
Gone?  No.  Nothing  good  can  die.  All  harmony  exists 
unto  eternity.  This  is  the  only  thing  that  makes  life  worth 
while  and  gives  it  strong  and  victorious  music  — saves  it 
from  the  minor  key.     It  is  *'the  C  Major  of  this  life." 

4.  Difl&cult  points : 

Stanza  i  —  as  when  Solomon  willed.  Legends  both  Jewish 
and  Mohammedan  exalt  Solomon's  power  and  wisdom 
far  beyond  what  is  said  of  him  in  the  Old  Testament. 
The  legends  make  him  commander  of  the  demons  and  of 
the  powers  of  Nature.  This  power  he  owed  to  the  fact  that 
he  possessed  a  seal  with  the  ineffable  name  of  the  God 


l84  BROWNING  STUDIES 

of  the  Hebrews  on  it.^  See  the  reference  to  this  name  later 
in  this  stanza.    Cf .  also  stanza  ix. 

Stanza  ii  —  nether  springs,  lower  springs,  i.e.  springs 
at  the  bottom  of  the  world.  The  phrase  is  unfortunate 
because  men  do  not  lay  the  foundations  of  a  palace  on 
springs,  nor  on  springy  ground,  but  on  rock. 

Stanza  in  —  gold  as  transparent  as  glass.  Cf.  Rev.  21 : 
18,  21.  Outlining  .  .  .  Rome's  dome,  the  dome  of  St. 
Peter's  Church  in  Rome,  which  used  to  be,  on  great  festivals 
e.g.  that  of  Easter,  outlined  by  fixing  on  it  thousands  of 
candles. 

Stanza  v  —  Protoplast,  the  thing  first  modelled,  the 
thing  from  which  all  the  other  similar  things  are  copied. 
The  word  is  from  the  same  root  as  the  more  familiar  word 
protoplasm,  the  physical  basis  of  life,  identical  in  the  cells 
of  all  living  things. 

Stanza  vii  —  that  can,  can  used  as  an  independent  verb, 
not  as  an  auxiliary,  —  used  here  as  in  "I  can  no  more.*' 
The  will  that  can  means  the  will  that  has  power,  the  will  that 
does  things,  the  will  that  creates.  That  out  of  three  sounds 
he  frame,  not  a  fourth  sound,  but  a  star  —  star  used  figura- 
tively, meaning  something  far  above,  far  more  striking 
than,  what  we  had  before.  The  point  is:  If  you  mix 
three  colors  together,  you  will  get  a  color.  But  if  you  mix 
three  tones  in  a  chord,  the  result  will  not  be  a  fourth  tone, 
but  a  harmony  of  the  three.  Thus  the  musician  has  a 
sort  of  creative  power. 

Stanza  xii  —  Vogler  resumes  now  on  his  instrument, 
beginning  with  a  chord  in  the  major  key.  He  modulates 
into  the  minor  key,  and  "blunts  it  into  a  ninth."  Blunt 
here  means  to  flat;   it,  the  chord,  or  the  note  which  de- 

^  We  have  given  a  brief  discussion  in  regard  to  this  name  in  Chapter  II. 
See  p.  57. 


ABT  VOGLER  185 

termines  the  chord ;  a  ninth  means  an  octave  and  one  degree 
additional,  which  in  the  major  key  amounts  to  an  octave 
and  a  full  tone,  but  in  the  minor,  in  which  Vogler  is  now 
playing,  amounts  to  an  octave  and  a  semitone  over.  A  full 
chord  of  the  ninth  consists  of  the  root  with  its  third,  fifth, 
seventh,  and  ninth.  While  playing  in  the  minor,  he  "stands 
on  alien  groimd,"  because  he  has  modulated  away  from  the 
major  into  music  conveying  a  different  impression,  —  the 
major  key  expressing  what  is  bright  and  exhilarating,  the 
music  of  hope,  joy,  victory,  —  the  minor  key  being  melan- 
choly, the  music  of  longing,  discouragement,  grief,  despair. 
He  surveys  "awhile  the  heights"  {heights  used  figuratively 
for  the  major  from  which  he  has  gotten  away),  from  which 
he  rolled  "into  the  deep,"  i.e.  into  the  minor  key.  "Which, 
hark,"  —  and  as  he  suits  the  action  to  the  word,  we  hear 
him  modulate  back  into  the  major  key.  Which  is  the 
heights,  the  major;  and  he  has  "dared  and  done"  the 
heights  when  he  has  gotten  back  into  the  major  key.  The 
point  in  "now  I  will  try  to  sleep"  is  that  life  Hved  in  C 
Major  is  normal ;  in  that  a  man  may  rest. 

A  detailed  explanation  of  a  modulation  such  as  Browning 
here  describes  is  given  by  Miss  Porter  and  Miss  Clarke 
in  their  note  in  the  Camberwell  Edition,^  as  follows : 

Suppose  Abt  Vogler,  when  he  "feels  for  the  common  chord," 
to  have  struck  the  chord  of  C  major  in  its  first  inversion,  i.e.  the 
third,  E,  in  the  bass,  the  fifth,  G,  at  the  top ;  now, "  sliding  by  semi- 
tones," that  is,  playing  in  succession  chords  with  the  upper  note  a 
semitone  lower,  he  would  come  to  the  chord  A,  E,  C,  which  is  the 
(minor)  tonic  chord  of  the  scale  of  A,  the  relative  minor  of  C,  and  so 
he  would  thus ' '  sink  to  the  minor. ' '    Now  he  blunts  the  fifth  of  this 

1  Camberwell  Browning,  vol.  V,  pp.  309,  310.  We  qudte  exactly,  pre- 
serving the  punctuation.  The  same  note  verbatim  wiU  be  found  in  the  vol. 
of  Browning's  Poems  edited  by  the  same  ladies,  1896,  pp.  476,  477,  —  its 
earlier  appearance. 


l86  BROWNING  STUDIES 

chord  E  to  E^,  which  thus  becomes  a  minor  ninth  over  the  root  D, 
the  whole  chord  being D,  FS,  A,  C,  Et^,  and,  as  he  explains,  he  stands 
on  aHen  ground  because  he  has  modulated  away  from  the  key  of  C, 
but,  instead  of  following  this  dominant  by  its  natural  solution,  its 
own  toniCjWhich  would  be  G,  B,  D,  he  treats  it  as  if  it  were  what  is 
called  a  supertonic  harmony.  So,  after  pausing  on  this  chord  to 
survey  awhile  the  heights  he  rolled  from  into  the  deep,  he  suddenly 
modulates  back  to  C.  He  has  dared  and  done,  his  resting-place 
is  found  —  the  C  major  of  this  life. 

Miss  Porter  and  Miss  Clarke  present^  the  music  on  the 
staff,  to  show  the  whole  progression  as  described. 

5.  The  best  part  of  the  poem  is  stanzas  viii-xii  inclusive, 
the  discussion  of  the  persistence  of  all  that  is  good  —  its 
survival  beyond  what  is  called  death.  This  is  at  one  with 
the  faith  Browning  shows  in  so  many  poems,  some  of  which 
we  have  already  studied  in  this  course.^  Abt  Vogler  seems 
to  go  further  than  the  other  statements  in  declaring  the 
survival  of  all  that  is  good,  beautiful,  or  harmonious.  It 
is  remarkable  that  Browning,  with  such  positive  faith  as 
this,  could  nevertheless  put  himself  so  completely  into  the 
point  of  view  of  a  man  like  Cleon  and  give  expression  so 
poignantly  to  the  hunger  for  immortality  and  the  despair 
of  its  being  satisfied. 

II.  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  pp.  501-503 

I.  The  man  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra  was  a  Jewish  scholar  and 
philosopher,  born  in  Toledo,  Spain,  in  1092  a.d.  His  full 
name  was  Abraham  ben  Meir  ben  (or  ibn)  Ezra ;  he  is 
usually  cited  as  Aben  Ezra  or  Ibn  Ezra.  He  was  always 
poor  and  studied  hard.  He  travelled  widely  in  Spain, 
France,  Italy,  Greece,  and  England.    He  gained  fame  as 

*  In  both  places  referred  to  in  our  preceding  note. 

*  e.g.  Pros  pice,  Reverie,  and  the  Epilogiie  to  Asolando.  Cf.  also,  in  The 
Flight  of  the  Duchess,  p.  363, 11. 98-100. 


RABBI  BEN  EZRA  187 

grammarian,  theologian,  astronomer,  mathematician,  poet, 
—  but  especially  for  his  commentaries.  In  these  commen- 
taries, which  are  on  most  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
he  was  one  of  the  first  of  mediaeval  scholars  to  employ  sound 
critical  principles.  He  died  in  11 67.  On  his  life  and 
writings,  the  greatest  work  done  in  English  has  been  done 
by  Dr.  M.  Friedlander,  whose  studies  include  a  translation 
of  Ibn  Ezra's  Commentary  on  Isaiah,  London,  1873,^  ^^^ 
a  series  of  Essays  on  the  Writings  of  Ibn  Ezra,  London,  1877.^ 

2.  Mr.  A.  J.  Campbell  declares  that  the  distinctive 
features  of  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra's  philosophy  in  Browning's 
poem  are  characteristic  of  the  writings  of  the  real  Rabbi.^ 
This  shows  Browning's  way  of  doing.  This  poem  is  not 
a  hit-or-miss  piece  of  imagination.  Browning  informed 
himself  in  regard  to  Ibn  Ezra's  teaching  (no  doubt  the  poem 
was  suggested  by  his  reading  in  the  writings  of  the  Rabbi), 
and  he  gives  here  an  epitome  of  how  the  real  Ibn  Ezra 
looked  at  life. 

3.  As  to  the  style  of  Browning's  poem : 

While  people  are  talking  about  Browning's  taking  so  many 
words  to  say  a  thing,  they  should  be  reminded  to  read  his 
Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  where  the  chief  difficulties  all  arise  from 
the  extreme  condensation  —  so  few  words  expressing  so 
much  thought,  in  almost  every  stanza.  Any  stanza  of 
the  poem  can  be  made  plain  by  writing  it  out  in  full,  i.e. 
supplying  words  and  phrases  implied.  Indeed,  this  pro- 
cedure is  recommended.  Take  any  stanza  which  you  find 
difficult  and  try  writing  out  the  sentence  completely  in  prose 

*  Publications  of  the  Society  of  Hebrew  Literature.  Michael  Friedlander, 
Ph.D.,  was  for  over  40  years  (1865-1907)  Principal  of  the  Jewish  College 
in  London.     He  is  the  author  of  many  works.     See  Who's  Who  iQio,  p.  700. 

2  Campbell's  notes  on  this  point  are  given  by  Berdoe,  Browning  Cyclopcsdia, 
PP-  374-376. 


i88  BROWNING  STUDIES 

form.  You  will  be  surprised  to  see  how  quickly  it  will 
straighten  itself  out. 

4.  As  to  the  philosophy: 

No  poet  in  English  has  made  old  age  so  beautiful  as 
Robert  Browning  has.^  Old  age  is  to  Browning  the  fulfill- 
ment of  youth  and  middle  age,  —  the  consummation  of 
our  earthly  life.^  He  has  set  this  forth  in  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra 
better  than  anywhere  else. 

a.  Now  growing  old,  looking  backward  over  his  life 
and  forward  to  the  great  change  which  is  called  death,  the 
Rabbi  is  serene  and  undismayed.  Old  age  is  the  best  of 
life,  for  which  the  earlier  years  were  made ;  it  is  the  fulfill- 
ment of  God's  plan.^  (P^^  ^S^  will  only  furnish  him  a 
chance  to  get  perspective,  to  recognize  what  have  been  the 
real  values  in  the  past  years,  and  to  prepare  himself  to  go 
forward  into  the  unseen  with  the  advantage  gained  from 
this  review  of  his  experience :  ^ 

"And  I  shall  thereupon 

Take  rest,  ere  I  be  gone 
Once  more  on  my  adventure  brave  and  new: 

Fearless  and  unperplexed, 

When  I  wage  battle  next, 
What  weapons  to  select,  what  armour  to  indue." 

b.  With  all  the  hardship  and  failure  he  has  met,  the 
Rabbi  is  glad  that  he  chose  high  ideals,  and  would  not 
accept  anything  else :  ^ 

"What  I  aspired  to  be. 
And  was  not,  comforts  me : 
A  brute  I  might  have  been,  but  would  not  sink  i'  the  scale." 

'  1  Cf.  the  Gipsy  in  The  Flight  of  the  Ducfiess,  p.  363, 11.  81-100. 
'But  cf.  how  keenly  Browning  puts  himself  in  Cleon's  place,  p.  471, 
11.  27  sqq. 

•Stanza  I.  *  Stanza  xiv.  *  Stanza  vii. 


RABBI  BEN  EZRA  189 

That  is,  the  fact  that  he  did  struggle  for  what  he  could  not 
attain  shows  what  was  in  him,  and  is  therefore  a  comfort 
to  him.  The  struggle  of  the  years  will  be  found  at  last 
to  have  removed  him  forever  from  the  plane  of  the  de- 
veloped brute ;  he  will  be  the  germ  of  a  god :  ^ 

"Thence  shall  I  pass,  approved 
A  man,  for  aye  removed 
From  the  developed  brute ;  a  god  though  in  the  germ." 

After  all,  what  a  man  really  has  done  is  not  to  be  estimated 
by  the  visible  results  on  which  the  public  can  lay  its  hand 
and  on  which  it  can  set  a  value :  ^ 

"But  all,  the  worid's  coarse  thumb 

And  finger  failed  to  plumb. 
So  passed  in  making  up  the  main  account ; 

All  instincts  immature, 

All  purposes  unsure. 
That  weighed  not  as  his  work,  yet  swelled  the  man's  amount : 

Thoughts  hardly  to  be  packed 

Into  a  narrow  act. 
Fancies  that  broke  through  language  and  escaped ; 

All  I  could  never  be. 

All,  men  ignored  in  me. 
This,  I  was  worth  to  God,  whose  wheel  the  pitcher  shaped."    ^ 

c.  No,  man  is  not  like  a  bird  or  beast,  satisfied  when  filled 
with  food.  Man  has  something  in  him  that  will  not  be 
satisfied  so.^    Man  is  allied  to  the  creative  Power:* 

"  Rejoice  we  are  allied 

To  That  which  doth  provide 
And  not  partake,  effect  and  not  receive ! 

A  spark  disturbs  our  clod ; 

Nearer  we  hold  of  God 
Who  gives,  than  of  His  tribes  that  take,  I  must  believe." 

1  Stanza  xm.  '  Stanzas  xxm-xxv. 

'  Stanzas  rv  sqq.  *  Stanza  v. 


/ 


igo  BROWNING  STUDIES 

The  words  ''hold  of*  mean  simply  are  related  to,  partake  of 
the  nature  of.  And  because  we  partake  of  the  nature  of 
God,  therefore  hardships  and  sufferings  are  to  be  met  with 
a  high  spirit :  ^ 

"Then,  welcome  each  rebuff 
That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough, 
Each  sting  that  bids  nor  sit  nor  stand  but  go  ! 
Be  our  joys  three-parts  pain  ! 
.     Strive,  and  hold  cheap  the  strain ; 
Learn,  nor  account  the  pang;  dare,  never  grudge  the  throe !" 

d.  The  Rabbi  does  not  believe  in  condemning  the  flesh 
and  despising  it  as  a  clog  to  the  spirit.  We  are  not  to  say 
we  have  gained  ground  in  spite  of  the  flesh.  Rightly  under- 
stood, the  body  is  good  and  the  soul  is  good.  In  normal 
and  complete  living,  the  body  will  be  up  to  its  height  and 
the  soul  up  to  its  height,  and  each  will  help  the  other :  ^ 

"As  the  bird  wings  and  sings, 
Let  us  cry  'All  good  things 
Are  ours,  nor  soul  helps  flesh  more,  now,  than  flesh  helps  soul ! ' " 

This  is  the  answer  to  the  question  proposed  in  the  latter 
half  of  stanza  viii. 

e.  The  poem  is  permeated  with  irrepressible  optimism 
and  implicit  faith  in  God.  Death  opens  to  us  Ufe's  com- 
pletion.' This  earth  is  only  a  Potter's  wheel  on  which 
God  shapes  us.^  And  the  ultimate  purpose  of  the  cup  (a 
human  personality)  so  shaped  is  to  do  God  service,  beyond 
the  gates  of  death.  Browning,  with  the  splendid  audacity 
which  so  often  characterizes  his  handling  of  a  metaphor, 
presents  a  picture  of  the  destination  of  the  cup  shaped  on 

1  Stanza  vi.       '  »  Stanza  xii.  «  Stanza  xxxii,  last  line. 

*  Cf.  Is.  64  :  8;  Jer.  18 : 1-6.  This  figure,  in  the  prophets,  of  God  as  a 
Potter  influenced  St.  Paul's  thought  also,  Rom.  9 :  20  sqq. 


A   DEATH  IN   THE  DESERT  191 

purpose  to  bear  wine  to  the  lips  of  God  ^  —  the  Rabbi  says 
that  never  in  the  worst  whirl  of  the  earthly  experience  has 
he  mistaken  the  end  he  will  ultimately  serve,  viz.  to  slake 
God's  thirst.2 

5. .  The  poem  is  compact  of  great  thoughts,  and  it  is  quite 
unsatisfactory  to  try  to  summarize  it.  To  read  it,  not 
merely  once  but  scores  of  times,  that  is  what  makes  its 
wholesome  and  invigorating  views  of  life  grow  on  a  man. 
There  is  no  poem  of  equal  length  which  will  do  more  to 
make  a  man  calm  and  stem  and  glad  than  Browning's 
Rabbi  Ben  Ezra. 

III.  A  Death  in  the  Desert,  pp.  503-512 

1.  The  manner  of  presentation  gives  the  work  an  air  of 
antiquity  which  is  very  fascinating.  This  effect  is  produced 
by  a  statement  in  brackets,  prefixed  as  if  by  an  editor.  The 
statement  explains  that  what  follows  is  from  a  manuscript 
supposed  to  be  by  Pamphylax,  and  describes  the  manuscript, 
its  location  in  a  particular  chest,  and  its  history.  This  last 
is  really  the  master  stroke:  the  editor  has  received  the 
manuscript  from  Xanthus,  his  wife's  uncle,  now  deceased. 
The  impression  received  from  this  preface  is  increased  by 
another  explanation  in  brackets  on  the  next  page,^  pur- 
porting to  give  a  gloss  originated  by  Theotypas.  Some- 
thing of  a  similar  atmosphere  is  created  by  the  matter  en- 
closed in  brackets  at  the  end  of  the  poem. 

2.  The  poem  purports  to  be  an  accoimt  of  the  death  of 
the  Apostle  John. 

a.  The  tradition  of  the  Church  from  the  latter  half  of 
the  second  century  onward  is  that  John  came  to  an  extreme 
age  and  was  the  last  surviving  of  the  Apostles.  The 
tradition  definitely  associates  the  closing  period  of  his  life 

»  Stanzas  xxrx  and  xxx.  2  stanza  xxxi.  »  P.  504,  U.  33-55. 


192 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


with  the  city  of  Ephesus  in  Asia  Minor  and  places  his  death 
in  the  time  of  Trajan,  who  became  Emperor  in  the  year 
98  A.D. 

b.  Browning  gives  us  here,  from  imagination,  some  sketch 
of  the  circumstances  under  which  John's  death  took  place, 
but  that  is  not  the  main  point.  Whatever  is  said  about  his 
death  is  only  a  frame  for  his  last  address,  his  dying  message. 
The  circumstances  related  have  a  vivid  reality  except  in 
one  point,  and  that  is  improbable :  The  dying  Apostle  is 
unconscious,  so  far  gone  that  it  seems  hardly  possible  to 
rouse  him  at  all ;  yet  when  he  is  finally  roused,  he  sits  up 
and  speaks  page  after  page  of  keenly  argued  philosophy. 
Of  course,  it  is  not  physically  impossible  that  the  man's 
vitaUty  should  thus  reassert  itself  and  give  him  an  oppor- 
tunity to  spend  all  his  last  strength  in  this  way,  but  it  is 
improbable.  Apart  from  the  question  which  arises  on  this 
point,  the  setting  which  introduces  the  speech  and  follows  it 
is  dramatic  and  picturesque  to  a  remarkable  degree. 

3.  The  thing  that  stimulated  Browning  to  write  the  argu- 
ment which  he  here  puts  in  St.  John's  mouth  was  the  trend 
of  radical  criticism,  and  especially  Kenan's  Vie  de  Jesus 
{Life  of  Jesus)  pubHshed  in  June,  1863.  That  Kenan's  book 
made  considerable  impression  on  Browning  we  see  not 
only  here  but  in  the  Epilogue  to  the  very  volume  in  which 
this  poem  appeared.  In  the  Epilogue,  the  statement  of 
doubt  and  disappointment  is  put  in  the  mouth  of  a  *'  Second 
Speaker,  as  Renan."  ^  In  A  Death  in  the  Desert  the  chief 
thing  is  Browning  arguing  against  the  extreme  critical 
position  with  which  he  had  become  acquainted.  It  is  true 
that  Browning  seems  to  be  mixing  up  things  pretty  badly 
when  he  puts  an  answer  to  nineteenth  century  criticism  in 
the  mouth  of  St.  John  at  the  end  of  the  first  century.  But 
^  P'  S39>  between  11.  75  and  76. 


A   DEATH  IN  THE  DESERT  193 

it  should  be  said  that  the  Apostle  has  a  right  to  look  forward 
and  anticipate  how  his  testimony  as  to  Christ's  life  and 
teaching  will  be  received  in  future  centuries.  The  philos- 
ophy, however,  in  St.  John's  speech  is  exceedingly  modem. 
Yet  to  this  it  may  be  answered  that  the  great  problems  of 
Kfe  and  faith  are  much  the  same  in  all  centuries,  and  so  the 
speech  may,  in  a  certain  way,  be  justified  in  its  setting. 
But  after  all  it  is  impossible  to  escape  a  sense  of  dramatic 
infelicity  in  this  poem. 

4.  Browning  has  taken  pains  to  weave  into  the  d3dng 
Apostle's  speech  many  allusions  to  give  it  an  atmosphere  of 
reality.  Such  are  the  references  to  the  speaker's  extreme 
age  and  his  having  outlived  the  others,^  the  references  to 
events  in  which  he  had  a  part,^  and  the  reminiscences  of 
New  Testament  writings  associated  with  St.  John's  name.' 
Yet  what  Browning  accomplishes  in  this  line  he  undoes  in 
large  measure  by  references  to  ^schylus  and  the  Prome- 
theus-myth,^ Jove,^  Juno,^  and  Atlas,^  —  all  of  which 
sound  very  strange  from  the  lips  of  the  Apostle  John,  if 
he  is  the  author  of  any  of  the  New  Testament  writings 
with  which  his  name  has  been  connected. 

5.  The  argument,  though  undoubtedly  provoked  by 
Renan's  work,  is  aimed  not  only  at  him  but  at  several 
phases  of  modern  doubt.  The  following  is  a  rough  outline 
of  the  progress  of  it : 

a.  The  Apostle  reviews  how  he  taught  about  Christ's 
life  and  how  he  wrote  the  works  (the  Fourth  Gospel,  i,  2, 
and  3  John,  Revelation)  associated  with  his  name."' 

1  p.  511, 1.  56 ;  p.  504, 11.  65-68.  *  e.g.  p.  507, 11.  20-24. 

«  e.g.  p.  504, 11.  71-74  (cf.  Rev.  i :  10-16) ;  p.  505, 11. 1-5  (cf.  i  Jn.  i :  1-3) ; 
p.  S05)  11-  30,  31  (cf-  I  Jn.  2  :  18). 

*  P.  506, 11.  70-77 ;  p.  510,  11.  21-30.  ^  P.  508, 11.  SI,  52. 

«P.  sio,  1.  56.  '  P.  505, 11.  7-59. 


194  DROWNING  STUDIES 

b.  But  he  foresees  the  rise  of  doubts  and  questionings, 
extending  in  far-off  generations  so  far  as  to  deny  the  genuine- 
ness of  his  testimony  and  even  to  dispute  his  own  existence : 

"  Was  John  at  all,  and  did  he  say  he  saw  ?  "  ^ 

c.  The  life  and  death  of  Christ  are  to  him  a  matter  of 
perpetual  present  reality : 

"To  me,  that  story  —  ay,  that  Life  and  Death 
Of  which  I  wrote  'it  was'  —  to  me,  it  is ; 
—  Is,  here  and  now:  I  apprehend  nought  else."  ^ 

And  he  goes  on  to  explain  why  this  is  so.^ 

d.  Yet  not  as  they  are  to  him  will  seem  Christ's  life  and 
death  to  coming  generations.  If  the  Apostle  could  use  a 
telescope,  wrong  end  to,  on  these  events,  he  would  see  them 
look  removed  to  a  distance,  as  future  centuries  must  see 
them.     So  he  tries  to  see  from  that  point  of  view.^ 

e.  He  founds  his  general  argument  on  Love  as  the  chief 
thing  of  worth  in  life : 

"For  life,  with  all  it  yields  of  joy  and  woe, 
And  hope  and  fear,  —  believe  the  aged  friend,  —         ^ 
Is  just  our  chance  o'  the  prize  of  learning  love. 
How  love  might  be,  hath  been  indeed,  and  is ; 
And  that  we  hold  thenceforth  to  the  uttermost 
Such  prize  despite  the  envy  of  the  world. 
And,  having  gained  truth,  keep  truth :  that  is  all."  '^ 

f.  This  leads  to  the  question : 

"Does  God  love. 
And  will  ye  hold  that  truth  against  the  world  ?  "  « 

The  answer  ^  is  along  the  line  that  the  final  test  of  things 
is  in  our  own  experience :  things  proven  there  we  can  never 

1  P.  SOS,  1.  68.  2  p.  ^o^^  u,  8o^  8i ;  p.  506, 1.  i.         3  P.  506,  11.  2-16. 

*  P.  S06, 11.  17  sqq.  6  P.  S06,  U.  35-41.  «  P.  506, 11.  63,  64. 

'  P.  S06, 1.  6s-p.  S07, 1.  II. 


A  DEATH  IN   THE  DESERT  I95 

disown.  If  a  man  has  really  experienced  the  worth  of 
Christ,  he  could  no  more  give  Him  up  than  he  could  give 
up  fire  after  he  has  proven  its  warmth ;  the  worth  of  one 
would  be  as  real  as  the  worth  of  the  other.  Experience  is 
the  proof  of 

"The  love  that  tops  the  might,  the  Christ  in  God." » 

g.  Presently  the  Apostle  proceeds  to  state  at  some  length 
the  doubt  whose  burden  will  press  upon  men's  thoughts  in 
the  latter  days.^  He  will  try  to  speak  to  those  of  future 
centuries  as  he  would  explain  about  the  glow  of  Kght 
outside  to  a  boy  growing  up  in  this  cave  and  seeing  only 
yon  glimmer.     He  imagines  those  men  standing 

"On  islets  yet  unnamed  amid  the  sea," 
or  in  great  cities 

"Where  now  the  larks  sing  in  a  solitude," 
or  musing 

"upon  blank  heaps  of  stone  and  sand 
Idly  conjectured  to  be  Ephesus,"  — 

and  the  questioners  to  Christ  is  not 

"Where  is  the  promise  of  His  coming?"  ' 

which  was  the  doubt  that  perplexed  the  Apostolic  Age,  but 

"Was  He  revealed  in  any  of  His  lives. 
As  Power,  as  Love,  as  Influencing  Soul?"  * 

This  is  the  great  question,  whether  the  view  of  Christ's 
person  and  power  held  by  the  Church  is  true  to  the  facts  — 

1  P.  506, 1.  56. 

« P.  507, 1. 50-p.  508, 1. 56. 

3  p.  507,  1.  76*  cf.  p.  505,  1.  49.  In  the  first  age  of  the  Church,  they 
expected  the  Second  Coming  of  Christ  within  a  generation.  See  Matt.  24 : 
34;  iThess.  4:16,  17;  I  Cor.  15:51,  52;  and  often.  Cf.  Browning,  p. 
512, 11.  9,  10. 

*P.507,11.  77,  78. 


196 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


whether  Christ  as  pictured  is  not  the  product  of  human 
idealizing.  The  modern  argument  against  our  conception  of 
God  is  considerably  elaborated  in  St.  John's  statement  of 
the  doubt  to  which  he  is  to  reply,  —  that  argument  being 
that  what  we  think  we  find  in  the  universe  is  really  some- 
thing we  have  projected  from  our  own  minds.^  Is  it  not 
so  with  the  conception  the  Church  has  of  Christ? 

h.  The  Apostle  answers  that  he  believes  in  perpetual 
progress : 

"I  say  that  man  was  made  to  grow,  not  stop; 
That  help,  he  needed  once,  and  needs  no  more, 
Having  grown  but  an  inch  by,  is  withdrawn : 
For  he  hath  new  needs,  and  new  helps  to  these."  ^ 

But  God  and  Truth  suffer  no  change ;  man's  apprehension  of 
God  changes,  and  then  whatever  helped  him  to  that  new 
apprehension  falls  away  no  longer  needed.^  Minds  develop, 
being  at  first  '' spoon-fed  with  truth."  At  one  stage, 
miracles  are  an  aid  to  faith,  but  the  mind  goes  on  to  a  point 
where  it  needs  no  such  crude  and  elementary  help.^  The 
acceptance  of  the  truth  as  to  Christ's  Person  is  the  way  into 
the  solution  of  the  questions  that  beset  our  thoughts : 

"I  say,  the  acknowledgement  of  God  in  Christ 
Accepted  by  thy  reason,  solves  for  thee 
All  questions  in  the  earth  and  out  of  it, 
And  has  so  far  advanced  thee  to  be  wise."  ^ 

i.  Now,  argues  the  Apostle : 

"I  say,  this  is  death  and  the  sole  death, 
When  a  man's  loss  comes  to  him  from  his  gain, 
Darkness  from  light,  from  knowledge  ignorance, 
And  lack  of  love  from  love  made  manifest."  ^ 

1  P.  508,  U.  4-56.  2  P.  508,  U.  59-62. 

» P.  508,  U.  64-69.  « p.  509, 11.  16-44. 

» P.  509,  U.  37-40.  a  P.  S09,  U.  45-48. 


A  DEATH  IN  THE  DESERT  197 

He  then  traces  step  by  step  man's  progressive  recognition 
of  God :  First  the  recognition  of  might,  then  will  behind  the 
might,  then  love  behind  the  will  and  might.  And  each 
of  these  realities  which  are  in  God  has  a  correspondent  in 
human  nature.  Turning  back  into  any  stage  of  the  process 
passed  is  death,  i.e.  life  may  be  said  to  be  only  corre- 
spondence with  present  reality  and  any  measure  of  failure 
of  such  correspondence  is,  in  just  that  measure,  death : 

"That  man  has  turned  round  on  himself  and  stands, 
Which  in  the  course  of  nature  is,  to  die."  ^ 

Now  Christ  is  the  Love  of  God,  and  the  man  who  rejects 
Christ  is  caught  in  this  illogical  position,  viz.  that  he 

"  knows  himself , 
That  he  must  love  and  would  be  loved  again, 
Yet,  owning  his  own  love  that  proveth  Christ, 
Rejecteth  Christ  through  very  need  of  Him."  ^ 

j.  The  imaginary  objector  against  whom  St.  John  is 
arguing  asks :  ^  Why  didn't  you  tell  the  story  of  Christ's 
hf e  in  such  a  way  as  to  preclude  doubt  ?  Why  all  this  lack 
of  exactness  and  scientific  proof?  Doesn't  your  work 
allow  room  for  the  conviction  that  the  story  is  simply  the 
vehicle  for  a  doctrine  which  you  want  to  teach,^  as  is  ad- 
mittedly the  case  with  the  story  of  Prometheus?  St. 
John  answers^  that  no  man's  work  is  perfect.  Man  is 
neither  God  nor  beast,  but  a  creature  who  is  struggling 

"from  old  to  new. 
From  vain  to  real,  from  mistake  to  fact, 
From  what  once  seemed  good  to  what  now  proves  best."  • 

1  P.  509, 11.  61,  62.  2  P.  509, 1.  71-p.  510, 1.  2.       » P.  510,  11.  s-30. 

*  The  Fourth  Gospel  is  written  confessedly  with  purpose  to  convince  men 
of  a  view  of  Christ's  Person  and  to  lead  them  into  faith  in  Him.  With  this 
purpose  the  incidents  are  chosen.    See  Jn.  20-:  30, 31 . 

6  P.  sio,  U.  31  sqq.  » P.  510, 11.  36-38. 


iqS  browning  studies 

The  only  attitude  that  befits  man  is  for  him  in  humility 
to  do  what  he  can  to  see  things  aright  and  to  follow  the 
truth.  So  the  Apostle  has  sincerely  done  what  he  could, 
shaping  his  story  of  Christ  to  "pluck  the  blind  ones  back 
from  the  abyss."  ^ 

*  See  p.  SI  1, 1.  55,  in  which  he  describes  his  life-service. 


PARACELSUS 

Pp.  15-69 

Paracelsus  was  published  in  1835.  Browning  was  then 
23  years  oldj. —  i.e.  his  dedication  of  the  book  is  dated  March 
15,  1835,  and  his  twenty- third  birthday  was  the  May 
7th  following.  The  poem  is  remarkable  for  its  maturity 
of  thought,  coming  from  so  young  a  man.  It  contains  a 
thorough  discussion  of  the  question :  What  makes  Ufe 
worth  while  ?  what  is  the  chief  end  of  existence  ?  what  should 
a  man's  great  life-purpose  be  ?  The  poem  was  considerably 
revised  in  later  editions,^  and  many  changes  in  wording 
were  introduced,  but  no  modification  in  the  philosophy. 
Once  for  all,  Browning  settled  his  philosophy  of  life.  He  has 
worked  out  the  whole  problem  in  the  conversations  between 
Paracelsus  and  his  friends. 

I.  The  Historical  Paracelsus 

I.  At  the  end  of  the  poem,^  Browning  has  himself  fur- 
nished a  sketch  of  the  life  of  Paracelsus,  which  he  has 
translated  from  the  Biographie   Universelkj  Paris,   1822, 

^  See  Geo.  Willis  Cooke,  Guide-Book  to  the  Works  of  Browning,  Boston, 
1893,  pp.  264-279.  Mr.  Cooke  gives  a  table  of  changed  readings,  additions, 
and  omissions,  compiled  from  a  comparison  of  the  text  of  1835  with  that  of 
1888.  He  does  not  indicate  at  what  time  the  various  changes  were  intro- 
duced. 

» Pp.  65-69. 

199 


2O0  BROWNING  STUDIES 

and  has,  with  keen  historical  instinct,  added  six  notes,' 
besides  several  footnotes.  Browning's  notes  are  to  cor- 
roborate statements  in  that  article  or  to  correct  them. 
He  appeals  to  some  of  the  sources  of  information  as  to 
Paracelsus'  life,  which  sources  he  quotes  in  the  original 
Latin,  and  estimates  their  reliability.  We  thus  see  how 
early  in  his  life-work  the  sound  historical  scholarship  of 
Browning  had  its  foundations. 

2.  Moreover,  the  Editor  of  our  Globe  Edition  has  pre- 
fixed an  account  of  Paracelsus'  life  at  the  opening  of  the 
poem.  This  agrees  as  to  dates  usually  with  the  Encyclo- 
paedia of  Biography  quoted  by  Browning  except  for  the 
date  of  birth,  which  in  Browning's  authority  is  put  1493, 
while  in  our  editorial  introduction  it  is  put  broadly  "about 
1490." 

3.  An  inquiry  as  to  Paracelsus'  life^  develops  the  follow- 
ing facts : 

a.  It  is  not  necessary  to  say  "about  1490."    The  day  of 

*  Some  of  Browning's  notes  are  wrong,  as  e.g.  note  i,  in  which  he  discusses 
the  name  Bombast. 

2  See  Franz  Hartmann,  M.D.,  The  Life  of  Paracelsus  and  the  Substance  of 
his  Teaching,  London,  1886,  New  York,  1891 ;  same,  second  edition  re- 
vised and  enlarged.  New  York,  no  date,  —  in  this  2d  ed.  the  life  of  Paracel- 
sus covers  pp.  1-23,  and  is  followed  by  a  list  of  his  works,  and  then  by  a 
discussion  of  his  science  and  philosophy;  Rudolph  Steiner,  Ph.D.,  Mystics 
of  the  Renaissance  and  their  Relation  to  Modern  Thought,  tr.  by  Bertram 
Keightley,  M.A.,  New  York,  1911,  pp.  196-222;  A.  E.  Waite,  The  Her- 
metic and  Alchemical  Writings  of  Paracelsus  now  for  the  first  time  translated 
into  English,  edited  with  Biographical  Preface  &c.,  2  vols.,  London,  1894; 
same,  new  and  limited  ed.,  2  vols.,  edited  by  Dr.  L.  W.  de  Laurence,  Chicago, 
1910;  Franz  Strunz,  Ph.D.,  Theophrastus  Paracelsus,  sein  Lebcn  und  seine 
Personlichkeit,  Leipzig,  1903.  This  last  mentioned  book  is  by  far  the  best 
thing  I  have  found  for  the  life  of  Paracelsus.  It  is  careful  and  exact,  and 
contains  several  portraits  and  facsimiles. 

Of  encyclopaedia  articles  the  best  are:  Paracelsus  in  Enc.  Brit.,  nth  ed. 
(article  not  signed) ;  Paracelsus  in  Catholic  Enc.  (article  signed  by  Leopold 
Senf elder,  Teacher  of  the  History  of  Medicine  in  the  University  of  Vienna). 


PARACELSUS  20I 

Paracelsus'   birth    is    exactly    known  —  Nov.    lo,    1493} 
And    the   day   of    his    death    is    exactly    known  —  Sept. 

24,  1541.^ 

b.  His  name  is  given  in  a  great  variety  of  forms,  —  most 
commonly  nowadays  as  Philippus  Aureolus  Paracelsus.^ 
It  was  originally  Theophrastus  Bombast  von  Hohenheim.* 
The  usual  explanation  is  that  he  took  the  name  Paracelsus 
{i.e.  beside  Celsus,  or  the  equal  of  Celsus)  because  of  his 
opinion  of  his  own  ability.^  He  is  familiarly  called  in 
Browning's  poem  "Aureole." 

c.  He  was  born  at  the  SiMbrucke^  near  Einsiedeln,  in  the 

1  So  Strunz,  Theophrastus  Paracelsus,  p.  27.  Senf elder,  Cath.  Enc., 
follows  Strunz.  Hartmann,  p.  2,  gives  birthdate  Nov.  26,  1493.  Many 
give  Dec.  1 7, 1493.  The  question  is  not  about  the  year,  but  about  the  month 
and  day.  Strunz  in  his  footnote  appeals  to  Sudhoff's  article  "Zu  Hohen- 
heims  Geburtstag"  and  adds :  "Die  Annahme  des  17.  Dez.  als  Geburtstag  ist 
nach  Sudhoffs  Forschungen  unwahrscheinlich.  Vielfach  wird  aber  dieses 
Datum  noch  nachgedruckt." 

2  Strunz,  p.  76.  The  day  frequently  given  is  Sept.  23,  but  on  Paracelsus' 
tombstone  the  date  is  plainly  Sept.  24.  Strunz  prints  the  inscription  on 
this  page. 

3  An  engraving  of  Paracelsus  (reproduced  by  Strunz,  opposite  p.  74) 
signed  with  monogram  A  H  (Augustin  Hirschvogel,  see  Strunz,  p.  126)  and 
with  date  1 540,  gives  the  name  as  A  ureolus  Theophrastus  ab  Hohenheim.  The 
inscription  on  the  oil-painting  (Strunz,  frontispiece),  date  and  painter  un- 
known (Strunz,  p.  126),  now  in  the  Royal  Gallery  at  Schleissheim  near 
Munich,  gives  the  name  as  Theophrastus  Paracelsus.  The  epitaph  at 
Salzburg  reads  Philippus  Theophrastus  (Strunz,  pp.  27,  76).     And  so  on. 

*  Or  as  it  was  often  Latinized,  Theophrastus  Bomhastus  ah  (or  ex)  Hohen- 
heim. 

5  But  his  letter  to  Erasmus  (reproduced  in  autograph  facsimile  by  Strunz 
between  pp.  46  and  47  and  printed  on  pp.  117  and  118)  is  signed  simply 
Theophrastus.  In  many  other  places  he  puts  himself  down  as  Theophrastus 
von  Hohenheim  or  Theophrastus  ex  Hohenheim  (see  Strunz,  pp.  42,  51,  55), 

'  Literally  the  Sihlhridge,  i.e.  a  village  so  named  because  it  is  at  a  bridge 
over  the  river  Sihl.  Baedeker,  Switzerland,  4th  English  ed.,  p.  297,  calls  it 
"the  TeufelsbrUcke  which  spans  the  Sihl,"  and  adds:  "The  celebrated  em- 
piric and  alchemist  Paracelsus  is  said  to  have  been  bom  here."  He  reckons 
it  at  3I  miles  from  Einsiedeln. 


202  BROWNING  STUDIES 

canton  of  Schwyz,  Switzerland.^  Schwyz  is  one  of  the 
"four  Forest  Cantons,"  and  has  altogether  a  population  of 
about  50,000.  Einsiedeln,  its  largest  town,  has  now 
(census  of  1900)  a  population  of  about  8,500.  It  is  22 
miles  northeast  of  the  city  of  Lucerne  and  25  miles  by 
the  railroad  southeast  of  Zurich. 

d.  Paracelsus  died  in  the  city  of  Salzburg,  in  Austria. 
He  was  buried  in  the  churchyard  of  St.  Sebastian,  but  in 
1752  his  bones  were  removed  to  the  tomb  where  they  now 
lie,  in  the  porch  of  St.  Sebastian's  Church. 

e.  His  father  was  the  learned  Wilhelm  Bombast  von 
Hohenheim,  physician  to  the  monastery  at  Einsiedeln. 
He  moved  to  Villach  in  Carinthia,  Austria,  about  1502, 
where  later  he  became  City-physician.  It  is  almost  certain 
that  he  was  of  the  noble  family  of  Bombast  ^  whose  ancestral 
seat  was  the  castle  Hohenheim  near  Stuttgart,  in  Wiirtem- 
berg.  Hence  the  family  name  Bombast  von  Hohenheim. 
This  castle  was  in  the  possession  of  the  family  up  to  1409. 
His  wife  (whom  he  married  in  1491  or  1492)  was  of  the 
Ochsener  family  of  Einsiedeln. 

/.  Paracelsus'  first  teacher  was  his  father.'  He  men- 
tions a  number  of  other  early  teachers.'  He  studied  at 
the  University  of  Basel  ^  from  the  age  of  sixteen  on,  but  not 
long.  He  studied  chemistry  under  the  renowned  Johannes 
Trithemius,^  who  was  at  that  time  Abbot  of  the  Monastery 

1  Strunz,  p.  27  :  " Theophrastus  Bombast  von  Hohenheim  wurde  am  10. 
November  des  Jahres  1493  an  der  Sihlbriicke  bei  Einsiedeln  in  dem  Kanton 
Schwyz  geboren." 

2  Strunz,  p.  28. 

^  Strunz,  p.  29,  quotes  Paracelsus'  words  on  these  points. 

*  French  B&le.  The  city  is  on  the  northern  edge  of  Switzerland.  Its 
university  was  founded  in  1460. 

^  Johannes  Trithemius  (German,  Tritheim  or  Trittenheim) ,  born  Feb.  i, 
1462,  died  Dec.  13,  1516.  In  1485  he  became  Abbot  of  the  Monastery  of 
Sponheim,  near  Kreuznach.    This  position  he  resigned  in  1506,  and  was  soon 


PARACELSUS  203 

of  St.  Jakob  at  Wiirzburg,  in  Bavaria.  Paracelsus  gained 
his  knowledge  of  metallurgy  at  the  mines  owned,  or 
rather  operated  by  the  Fugger  family^  in  the  Tyrol. 
He  became  a  physician.  He  travelled  widely  and 
visited  most  of  the  universities  of  Europe.  At  one  time 
or  another,  he  went  over  all  parts  of  Germany  and  the 
Netherlands,  as  far  north  as  Denmark,  east  to  Hungary, 
south  to  Italy,  and  west  to  Spain,  Portugal,  France,  and 
England.^  Some  believe  that  he  went  to  Constantinople 
and  even  to  Turkestan.^ 

g.  In  1526  he  was  appointed  City-physician  and  Pro- 
fessor in  the  University  of  Basel,  but  left  the  town  two  years 
later  and  resumed  his  wanderings.  He  was  practically 
driven  from  Basel  by  the  physicians  whom  he  had  antag- 
onized.^ 

h.  Of  course,  as  was  inevitable  in  that  age,  Paracelsus* 
chemistry  was  mixed  up  with  alchemy,  his  astronomy  with 
astrology,  his  medicine  accompanied  by  magic,  and  so  on. 

after  appointed  Abbot  of  the  Monastery  of  St.  Jakob  at  Wiirzburg.  See 
art.  Trithemius  in  Enc.  Brit.,  nth  ed. 

1  This  family,  with  its  headquarters  in  Augsburg,  became,  from  1367  on, 
a  financial  power  in  Europe.  Their  business  interests  were  developed  in 
many  directions.  It  was  Jakob  Fugger  (bom  1459,  died  1525)  who  made 
so  much  money  in  mining.  Paracelsus'  experience  at  the  mines  was  at 
Schwaz,  some  twenty  miles  northeast  of  Innsbruck,  with  Sigmund  Fugger. 

2  Thus  much  is  sure  from  Paracelsus'  own  references  to  his  wanderings, 
quoted  by  Strunz,  pp.  31-33. 

3  The  way  it  is  usually  told  is  tkat  Paracelsus  was  carried  into  Tartary 
as  a  prisoner,  and  that  from  Samarkand  he  went  with  the  son  of  the  Khan 
on  an  embassy  to  Constantinople. 

*  Things  came  to  a  crisis  at  the  time  of  his  quarrel  with  Canon  Cornelius 
von  Lichtenfels.  The  Canon,  after  being  cured  by  Paracelsus,  refused  to 
pay  the  fee.  Whereupon  Paracelsus  sued  him.  But  the  magistrate  who 
heard  the  case  held  with  the  Canon,  which  so  incensed  Paracelsus  that  he 
expressed  his  mind  freely  as  to  such  a  perversion  of  justice.  The  resulting 
disturbance  was,  however,  simply  "the  last  straw."  He  had  met  already 
much  jealousy  and  opposition. 


204 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


It  was  commonly  supposed  that  a  dcemon,  or  familiar  spirit, 
dwelt  in  the  handle  of  his  long  sword.  His  system  of  philos- 
ophy was  visionary  and  theosophical.  He  was  intolerant 
and  conceited. 

i.  But  when  all  has  been  said  against  him,  these  things  in 
his  favor  remain :  He  had  something  of  the  modern  scientific 
spirit,  viz.  that  of  investigating  for  himself  rather  than 
being  bound  by  tradition.  He  was  in  a  certain  sense  "the 
father  of  modern  chemistry."  He  holds  an  important  place 
in  medicine  because  of  the  impetus  he  gave  to  pharma- 
ceutical science.^  He  did  perform  some  remarkable  cures. 
As  the  Editor  of  our  Globe  Edition  points  out,  "  It  is  asserted 
on  his  behalf  that  he  discovered  zinc,  hydrogen  gas,  and  the 
tincture  of  opium,"  but  it  is  not  certain  that  any  one  of 
these  great  discoveries  is  his.  But  in  contrast  to  all  the 
methods  of  studying  in  the  line  of  chemistry  and  medicine 
in  his  day,  he  introduced  the  method  of  studying  Nature 
at  first  hand.  And  this  method  is  what  has  brought  to 
Science  her  triumphs.^ 

4.  Paracelsus  was,  of  course,  a  contemporary  of  Martin 
Luther,  Zwingli,  and  the  struggle  of  the  Protestant  Refor- 
mation, and  these  men  and  events  are  reflected  somewhat 
in  Browning's  poem. 

*  Senfelder's  estimate  (art.  Paracelsus  in  Cath.  Enc.)  is  just  and  temperate : 
"  He  may  be  taken  as  the  founder  of  the  modern  materia  medica,  and  pioneer 
of  scientific  chemistry." 

2  The  Enc.  Brit.,  nth  ed.,  article  on  Paracelsus  says :  "Probably,  there- 
fore, his  positive  services  are  to  be  summed  up  in  this  wide  application  of 
chemical  ideas  to  pharmacy  and  therapeutics;  his  indirect  and  possibly 
greater  services  are  to  be  found  in  the  stimulus,  the  revolutionary  stimulus, 
of  his  ideas  about  method  and  general  theory." 


PARACELSUS  205 

II.  The  Scenes  Presented  in  Browning's  Poem 

1.  Browning's  treatment  of  Paracelsus  he  himself  ex- 
plains in  his  note  at  the  end  of  the  poem :  ^ 

"The  liberties  I  have  taken  with  my  subject  are  very  trifling ; 
and  the  reader  may  slip  the  foregoing  scenes  between  the  leaves 
of  any  memoir  of  Paracelsus  he  pleases,  by  way  of  commentary." 

Few  writers  of  this  sort  of  a  poem  would  propose  to  have 
their  work  subjected  to  such  a  test. 

2.  The  poem  is  made  up  of  dialogue  presented  in  five 
scenes,  i.e.  five  glimpses  of  Paracelsus  in  the  course  of  his 
life.    The  date  of  each  scene  is  carefully  given  by  Browning. 

Scene  I.  Paracelsus  Aspires.  He  is  sitting  and  talking 
with  his  friends  Festus  and  Michal,  in  a  garden  at  Wurz- 
burg,  Bavaria.  It  is  the  evening  before  he  starts  on  his 
travels.  The  year  is  151 2.  Paracelsus  is  hardly  twenty 
years  old,  full  of  hope,  courage,  and  devotion  to  the  search  for 
Knowledge.     To  know  shall  be  the  great  purpose  of  his  life. 

Scene  11.  Paracelsus  Attains.  Nine  years  have  passed, 
spent  in  his  eager  search  for  knowledge.  It  is  now  the 
year  1521.  He  sits  in  the  house  of  a  Greek  conjurer  in  the 
city  of  Constantinople.  Paracelsus  has  sacrificed  every- 
thing to  the  acquiring  of  knowledge  and  he  has  attained. 
He  has  amassed  great  knowledge,  but  is  entirely  unsatisfied. 
He  feels  that  his  life  has  failed,  and  the  old  adage  runs  in 
his  head :  ^ 

"Time  fleets,  youth  fades,  Hfe  is  an  empty  dream." 

It  is  in  this  house  that  he  meets  Aprile,  a  poet,  who  has  set 
Love  as  the  goal  of  his  ambitions : 

"I  would  LOVE  infinitely,  and  be  loved  !"  ' 
His  life,  too,  has  failed  and  he  dies  here  to-day. 

» P.  6s,  ist  col.  2  p.  26,  1.  19. 

'  P.  30, 1.  3.  Cf.  Paracelsus'  words,  1.  2 :  "I  am  he  that  aspired  to  know." 


2o6  BROWNING  STUDIES 

Scene  III.  Paracelsus.  The  bare  word  is  significant  — 
the  pause  in  the  midst  of  his  life,  1526,  five  years  after  he 
was  in  Constantinople.  Now  he  is  the  new  professor  in 
Basel,  and  his  old  friend  Festus  stops  to  see  him.  Their 
conversation  shows  us  Paracelsus  entirely  unsatisfied, 
scorning  his  popularity,  knowing  how  hollow  it  is,  and 
finding  no  comfort  in  his  knowledge,  but  gathering  his 
strength  for  another  effort  to  find  satisfaction. 

Scene  IV,  Paracelsus  Aspires  again,  is  two  years  later,  at 
an  inn  at  Colmar,  in  Alsace.  Paracelsus  has  just  fled  from 
Basel  and  now  has  sent  for  Festus.  The  conversation 
shows  a  new  aspiration  in  Paracelsus :  He  burns  with  his  old 
thirst  for  knowledge,  but  he  will  not  scorn  joy  as  he  has 
done,  but  will  drink  his  fill  of  that. 

Scene  V.  Paracelsus  Attains  again,  — 1541,  thirteen 
years  after  the  preceding  scene.  He  lies  unconscious  in 
the  Hospital  of  St.  Sebastian  in  Salzburg,  in  Austria.  His 
old  friend  Festus  is  beside  him.  And  when  Paracelsus  at 
last  rouses  up,  when  at  last  he  speaks  of  the  years  of  his 
life,  he  tells  Festus  that  not  in  knowledge  alone,  and  not  in 
love  alone,  is  found  life's  fulfillment,  but  in  knowledge  and 
love  together.  This  truth  has  grown  upon  him  ever  since 
he  met  Aprile  in  Constantinople ;  it  finds  now  its  fullest 
expression  in  the  hour  of  his  death. 

III.  The  Literary  Quality  of  the  Poem 

1.  The  style  is  remarkably  simple  and  easy,  and  the 
poem  abounds  in  what  Tennyson  would  have  called  "large, 
divine,  and  comfortable  words."  ^ 

2.  One  of  the  best  of  the  literary  characteristics  is  the 

*  Tennyson,  The  Coming  of  Arthur,  {Works,  Globe  Ed.,  1907,  p.  307) : 
"With  large,  divine,  and  comfortable  words, 
Beyond  my  tongue  to  tell  thee." 


PARACELSUS  207 

beauty  of  expression  in  regard  to  Nature  or  of  similes  from 
Nature,  —  all  set  forth  with  extraordinary  vividness. 
Hardly  less  striking  are  the  figures  of  speech  derived  from 
human  life.  Since  '' seeing  is  believing,"  let  me  repeat  a 
hundred  lines  from  almost  as  many  different  parts  of  the 
poem,  —  a  hundred  lines  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  match 
in  any  single  piece  of  English  Literature.^ 

a.   In  Scene  I,  in  the  garden  at  Wiirzburg : 

P.  16,  1.  I,  Autumn  — 

"Its  bleak  wind,  hankering  after  pining  leaves." 

1.  II, 

"Nor  blame  those  creaking  trees  bent  with  their  fruit." 

1.  28, 
"Yon  painted  snail  with  his  gay  shell  of  dew." 

P.  17,  11.  4,  5,  referring  to  Trithemius'  lecture  room  — 

"In  that  dim  chamber  where  the  noon-streaks  peer. 
Half -frightened  by  the  awful  tomes  around." 

U.  36,  37, 

"A  soUtary  brier  the  bank  puts  forth 
To  save  our  swan's  nest  floating  out  to  sea." 

P.  18,  11.  75-77,  just  Uke  Browning^s  spirit  — 

"  the  letting  go 
His  shivered  sword,  of  one  about  to  spring 
Upon  his  foe's  throat." 

P.  20,  11.  41-43, 

"Writes  the  sea 
The  secret  of  her  yearning  in  vast  caves 
Where  yours  will  fall  the  first  of  human  feet?" 

*The  fact,  already  pointed  out,  of  Browning's  revision  of  this  poem 
should  be  borne  in  mind. 


2o8  BROWNING  STUDIES 

P.  20,  11.  80-82,  the  spirit  that  stirred  Paracelsus  — 

"the  breath  so  light 
Upon  my  eyelids,  and  the  fingers  Ught 
Among  my  hair." 

P.  21,  11.  22,  23,  very  forceful  — 

"as  who  should  dare 
Pluck  out  the  angry  thunder  from  its  cloud." 

11.  31-33, 

"Like  some  knight  traversing  a  wilderness, 
Who,  on  his  way,  may  chance  to  free  a  tribe 
Of  desert-people  from  their  dragon-foe." 

11.  46,  47,  as  he  looked  at  the  world  — 

"I  soon  distinguished  here  and  there  a  shape 
Palm-wreathed  and  radiant." 

11-  58, 59, 

"Then  came  a  slow 
'       And  strangling  failure." 

11.  68,  69, 

"A  mighty  power  was  brooding,  taking  shape 
Within  me." 

P.  22,  11.  51,  52, 

"a  dark  and  groaning  earth 
Given  over  to  a  blind  and  endless  strife." 

11.  63-65,  persisting  to  the  end  — 

"Nay,  Festus,  when  but  as  the  pilgrims  faint 
Through  the  drear  way,  do  you  expect  to  see 
Their  city  dawn  amid  the  clouds  afar?" 

P.  23, 11.  23,  24,  Festus  says : 

"I  would  encircle  me  with  love,  and  raise 
A  rampart  of  my  fellows." 


PARACELSUS  209 

P.  24, 11.  16,  17,  it  is  the  evening  before  Paracelsus  starts 

out  — 

"  See,  the  great  moon  !  and  ere  the  mottled  owls 
Were  wide  awake,  I  was  to  go." 

P.  25,  11.  13,  14, 

'"Thus  was  life  scorned ;  but  life 
Shall  yet  be  crowned." 

11.  41-45,  as  Paracelsus  is  about  to  go  — 

"Are  there  not  .  .  . 
Two  points  in  the  adventure  of  the  diver, 
One  —  when,  a  beggar,  he  prepares  to  plunge, 
One  —  when,  a  prince,  he  rises  with  his  pearl? 
Festus,  I  plunge ! " 

b.  In  Scene  II,  in  Constantinople : 
P.  25,  11.  46,  47, 

"Over  the  waters  in  the  vaporous  West 
The  sun  goes  down  as  in  a  sphere  of  gold." 

11.  55-57, 

"  'Tis  as  yon  cloud 
Should  voyage  unwrecked  o'er  many  a  mountain-top 
And  break  upon  a  molehill." 

P.  26,  1.  31, 

"Was  it  the  Ught  wind  sang  it  o'er  the  sea?" 
P.  27,  11.  8-10, 

"There  was  a  time 
When  yet  this  wolfish  hunger  after  knowledge 
Set  not  remorselessly  love's  claims  aside." 

1-35, 
"And  since  that  morn  all  life  has  been  forgotten." 

11-  74,  75, 

"Let  me  weep 
My  youth  and  its  brave  hopes,  all  dead  and  gone." 


210  BROWNING  STUDIES 

P.  28,  11.  16,  17, 

"And  I  am  left  with  gray  hair,  faded  hands, 
And  furrowed  brow."  * 

11.  46,  47,  addressed  to  God,  expressing  the  splen- 
did audacity  of  Paracelsus'  ambition : 

"To  crown  my  mortal  forehead  with  a  beam 
From  thine  own  blinding  crown." 

P.  30, 11.  27,  28,  soon  after  Aprile  enters,  Paracelsus  says : 

"How  he  stands 
With  eve's  last  sunbeam  staying  on  his  hair ! " 

11.  32-34, 

"The  painful  fruitless  striving  of  the  brow 
And  enforced  knowledge  of  the  Ups,  firm-set 
In  slow  despondency's  eternal  sigh." 

11.  70,  71,  from  Aprile's  part  in  the  conversation, 
as  are  also  the  next  five  passages  quoted : 

"Lakes  which,  when  morn  breaks  on  their  quivering  bed, 
Blaze  like  a  wyvern  flying  round  the  sun." 

p.  31, 1- ", 

"Even  as  a  luminous  haze  links  star  to  star." 

1.  79,  in  life's  search,  journeying  sometimes 

"Past  tracts  of  milk-white  minute  bUnding  sand."  ^ 

P.  32,  11.  20,  21, 

"As  one  spring  wind  unbinds  the  mountain  snow 
And  comforts  violets  in  their  hermitage." 

*  Notice  the  "  faded  hands."  Could  any  word  tell  the  story  like  that  word 
faded? 

2  This  line  reads  "  tracts  "  in  the  author's  text  of  1835  and  1888;  mis- 
printed "  tracks  "  in  the  Globe  Ed. 


PARACELSUS  211 

P.  32, 11-  55,  56, 

"As  whirling  snow-drifts  blind  a  man  who  treads 
A  mountain  ridge,  with  guiding  spear,  through  storm." 

P.  33,  11.  24,  25, 

"God  is  the  perfect  poet, 
Who  in  his  person  acts  his  own  creations." 

c.   In  Scene  III,  at  Basel : 

P.  33, 11.  60-62,  Paracelsus  inquires  about  Michal : 

"And  Michal's  face 

« 

Still  wears  that  quiet  and  peculiar  light 
Like  the  dim  circlet  floating  round  a  pearl  ?  " 

p.  34, 1. 17, 

"  Shutting  Qut  fear  with  all  the  strength  of  hope." 

p-  37, 1. 63, 

"As  in  a  flying  sphere  of  turbulent  Hght." 

P.  40,  1.  8,  a  curious  simile  but  very  accurate  — 
"Chill  mushrooms  coloured  like  a  corpse*s  cheek." 

1.  72,  Festus  assures  Paracelsus : 
"The  cloud  that  wraps  you  will  have  disappeared." 

P.  42, 11.  53,  54,  57,  61,  Paracelsus  says: 

"You  know  not  what  temptation  is,  nor  how 
'Tis  like  to  ply  man  in  the  sickHest  part. 
There  is  not  one  sharp  volley  shot  at  us : 
We  are  assailed  to  life's  extremest  verge." 

1.  70,  the  splendid  grit  of  Paracelsus  — 
"But  though  I  cannot  soar,  I  do  not  crawl." 

P-  43,  1.  23, 

"Measure  your  mind's  height  by  the  shade  it  casts." 


212  BROWNING  STUDIES 

P.  45,  11.  27,  28, 

"'Tis  the  melancholy  wind  astir 
Within  the  trees." 

"The  night,  late  strewn  with  clouds  and  flying  stars, 
Is  blank  and  motionless." 

11.60,61, 

"gone,  shut  from  me  for  ever. 
Like  a  dead  friend  safe  from  unkindness  more." 

U.  62,  63, 

"See,  morn  at  length.    The  heavy  darkness  seems 
Diluted,  grey  and  dear  without  the  stars." 

11.  66-68, 

"and  from  the  East,  fuller  and  fuller, 
Day,  like  a  mighty  river,  flowing  in ; 
But  clouded,  wintry,  desolate  and  cold." 

d.  In  Scene  IV,  at  the  inn  in  Colmar : 

P.  49, 11.  19-21,  Paracelsus  speaks  of  his  spirit's 

"rapt  communion 
With  the  tumultuous  past,  the  teeming  future, 
Glorious  with  visions  of  a  full  success." 

11.  35-37, 

"  nor  shall  the  present  — 
A  few  dull  hours,  a  passing  shame  or  two. 
Destroy  the  vivid  memories  of  the  past." 

P.  54, 1.  20,  Michal,  whom  Festus  married,  has  died,  and 
Paracelsus  says : 

"And  Michal  sleeps  among  the  roots  and  dews." 

e.  In  Scene  V,  when  Paracelsus  is  dying  in  Salzburg : 

P.  54,  11.  30,  31, 

"The  lamp  bums  low,  and  through  the  casement-bars 
Grey  morning  glimmers  feebly." 


PARACELSUS  213 

P.  54,  11.  34,  35,  Festus  speaking  of  Paracelsus'  condition : 

"Those  fixed  eyes,  .  .  . 
Like  torch-flame  choked  in  dust." 

P.  55,  11.  72-74,  Paracelsus  imagining  that  he  has  heard 
Aprile  there ; 

"If  they  have  filled  him  full 
With  magical  music,  as  they  freight  a  star 
With  light." 

P.  57,  11.  7-10,  Festus  referring  to  Paracelsus'  mind : 

"A  light 
Will  struggle  through  these  thronging  words  at  last, 
As  in  the  angry  and  tumultuous  West 
A  soft  star  trembles  through  the  drifting  clouds." 

11.  40,  41,  Paracelsus  referring  to  the  possibility  of 

content : 

"Just  as  some  stream  foams  long  among  the  rocks 
But  after  ghdeth  glassy  to  the  sea." 

P.  58,  11.  18-20, 

"It  makes  my  heart  sick  to  behold  you  crouch 
Beside  your  desolate  fane :  the  arches  dim. 
The  crumbling  columns  grand  against  the  moon." 

1-47, 
"Where  the  blood  leaps  like  an  imprisoned  thing." 

P.  62,  11.  42,  43, 

"The  wroth  sea's  waves  are  edged 
With  foam,  white  as  the  bitten  lip  of  hate." 

11.  50-53, 

"Rare  verdure 
Buds  tenderly  upon  rough  banks,  between 
The  withered  tree-roots  and  the  cracks  of  frost, 
Like  a  smile  striving  with  a  wrinkled  face." 


214  BROWNING  STUDIES 

P.  62,  U.  58,  59, 

"The  lark 
Soars  up  and  up,  shivering  for  very  joy."  * 

P.  63,  11.  13,  14, 

"The  winds 
Are  henceforth  voices." 

1. 17, 

"The  herded  pines  commune  and  have  deep  thoughts."  ^ 
11.  27-30, 

"The  morn  hath  enterprise,  deep  quiet  droops 
With  evening,  triumph  takes  the  sunset  hour, 
Voluptuous  transport  ripens  with  the  corn 
Beneath  a  warm  moon  Hke  a  happy  face." 

P.  65, 11.  14-18,  as  Paracelsus  dies : 

"If  I  stoop 
Into  a  dark  tremendous  sea  of  cloud, 
It  is  but  for  a  time ;  I  press  God's  lamp 
Close  to  my  breast ;  its  splendour,  soon  or  late, 
Will  pierce  the  gloom :  I  shall  emerge  one  day." 

These  passages  illustrate  the  beauty  of  thought  and 
felicity  of  expression  in  Paracelsus,  The  poem  has  these 
qualities  to  an  extent  hard  to  find  equalled  anywhere  except 
in  Browning's  own  later  writings.^ 

^  Nothing  could  describe  the  lark's  movement  and  song  so  well  as  shivering 
for  very  joy. 

2  Anyone  who  recalls  the  group  of  pines  on  top  of  a  knoll,  how  they 
look  as  if  they  had  been  "rounded  up"  at  that  spot,  will  see  the  whole  picture 
in  the  phrase  "the  herded  pines." 

^  We  need  to  remind  ourselves  again  of  Browning's  extensive  revision  of 
the  wording  of  Paracelsus  in  later  editions,  so  that  we  shall  not  fall  into  the 
error  of  crediting  all  the  literary  excellence  of  the  poem  to  its  author  at  the 
age  of  twenty-three. 


PARACELSUS  2IS 

IV.  The  Philosophy  of  Browning  in  Paracelsus 

Our  study  of  Browning's  Philosophy  in  Paracelsus  will 
be  under  four  heads : 

1.  The  Unconquerable  Soul. 

2 .  The  Secret  of  Human  Life  —  Is  it  Knowledge  or  Love  ? 

3.  The  Realization  of  God's  Part  in  Human  Affairs. 

4.  "The  Power  of  an  Endless  Life." 

I.  First,  then,  the  unconquerable  soul  of  Paracelsus, — 
which  is,  of  course,  the  unconquerable  soul  of  Robert  Brown- 
ing, —  which  is,  of  course,  the  unconquerable  soul  that  all 
of  us  ought  to  have. 

a.  Paracelsus  begins  with  a  high  purpose  —  "  God's  great 
commission,"  ^ 

"The  path  which  God's  will  seems  to  authorise."  * 

It  is  the  devotion  to  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  alone:  he 
dares  aspire  to  know? 

h.  For  this  purpose,  he  left  "with  a  tumultuous  heart" 
his  "childhood's  home"  and  came  to  Wiirzburg  to  study 
under  Trithemius.* 

c.  But  now  he  feels  the  time  is  come  for  him  to  strike 
out  for  himself,  and  he  will  not  allow  himself  to  be  dissuaded 
from  it.  He  is  "  strong  and  full  of  hope."  ^  He  is  "  young, 
happy  and  free."  ® 

(i)  He  scorns  the  past  and  its  teachers.  Urged  by 
Festus,  "At  least  accept  the  light  they  lend,"  ^  he  answers : 

"Shalll  still  sit  beside 
Their  dry  wells,  with  a  white  lip  and  filmed  eye?"  ^ 

ip.  17,1.  41.  »P.  17, 1.71. 

» P.  19, 1.  12 ;  cf.  p.  30, 1.  2.  *  P.  18, 11.  49-52- 

6  P.  17,1.54.  »P.  20,1.8. 

'P.  22, 1.  48.  8p.22,U.SS,S6. 


2i6  BROWNING  STUDIES 

"The  labours  and  the  precepts  of  old  time, 
I  have  not  lightly  disesteemed.    But,  friends. 
Truth  is  within  ourselves ;  it  takes  no  rise 
From  outward  things,  whate'er  you  may  believe. 
There  is  an  inmost  centre  in  us  all, 
Where  truth  abides  in  fulness."  ^ 

(2)  He  has  a  great  interest  in  humanity.     He  remembers : 

"what  oppressive  joy  was  mine 
When  Ufe  grew  plain,  and  I  first  viewed  the  thronged. 
The  everlasting  concourse  of  mankind  ! "  ^ 

He  wants  to  see  the  race  elevated  as  a  whole : 

"Make  no  more  giants,  God, 
But  elevate  the  race  at  once !    We  ask 
To  put  forth  just  our  strength,  our  himian  strength, 
All  starting  fairly,  all  equipped  alike. 
Gifted  alike,  all  eagle-eyed,  true-hearted  — 
See  if  we  cannot  beat  thine  angels  yet !"  ^ 

This  agrees  with  what  he  feels  at  the  close  of  his  life : 

"So  glorious  is  our  nature,  so  august 
Man's  inborn  uninstructed  impulses. 
His  naked  spirit  so  majestical ! "  ^ 

And  his  expectation  then,  likening  the  progress  of  the  race 
to  the  coming  out  of  the  stars,  that  there  will  be  a  time 

"when  the  host 
Is  out  at  once  to  the  despair  of  night, 
When  all  mankind  alike  is  perfected."  ^ 

(3)  But  in  the  beginning  of  his  life-plan  he  has  no  idea  of 
being  "lost  in  the  ranks"  of  common  humanity,  "eluding 
destiny."^  He  sets  his  heart  on  something  other  than 
attaining  "the  general  welfare  of  his  kind."  ^    He  says: 

1  P.  24,  U.  26-31.  2  p.  21, 11.  4-6.  « P.  24, 11.  81-86. 

*  P.  62,  U.  2-4.  » P.  63,  U.  41-43.  "P.  17, 1-  SI. 

'P.  19,1.34- 


PARACELSUS  217 

"If  I  can  serve  mankind 
'Tis  well ;  but  there  our  intercourse  must  end : 
I  never  will  be  served  by  those  I  serve."  * 

He  will  leave  love  out  of  account  and  follow  only  knowledge. 
He  is  warned : 

"How  can  that  course  be  safe  which  from  the  first 
Produces  carelessness  to  human  love?"  ^ 

He  is  warned  of  the  danger  of  becoming 

"A  monstrous  spectacle  upon  the  earth: 
A  being  knowing  not  what  love  is."  ^ 

But  he  does  not  fear.  He  has  from  childhood  been  "pos- 
sessed by  a  fire."  ^  He  has  within  him  a  "fierce  energy,"  ^ 
a  "restless  irresistible  force."  ^  He  believes  that  he  can 
bring  "new  hopes,"  "new  light."  ^  He  goes  without 
thought  of  reward: 

"My  course  allures  for  its  own  sake,  its  sole 
Intrinsic  worth."  ^ 

A  voice  has  spoken  to  him  and  called  him  to  knoWj 

"not  for  knowing's  sake, 
But  to  become  a  star  to  men  for  ever."  • 

He  is  ready,  brave,  unflinching : 

"I  go  to  prove  my  soul! 
I  see  my  way  as  birds  their  trackless  way. 
I  shall  arrive!  what  time,  what  circuit  first, 
I  ask  not ;  but  unless  God  send  his  hail 
Or  bhnding  fireballs,  sleet  or  stifling  snow, 
In  some  time,  his  good  time,  I  sh^l  arrive : 
He  guides  me  and  the  bird.    In  his  good  time ! "  ^° 

1  P.  23,  U.  1-3.  » P.  23,  U.  9,  10. 

« P.  23, 11.  67,  69.  *  P.  20, 11.  66,  67. 

6  p,  jg^  I  65.  •  P.  19, 1.  70- 

'  P.  20, 11.  9-16.  «  P.  23, 11.  39, 40. 

» P.  22,  U.  I,  2.  "  P.  22, 11.  34-40. 


2i8  BROWNING  STUDIES 

d.  But  sitting  in  Constantinople  and  reviewing  the  nine 
years  of  struggle,  he  knows  that  he  has  attained  and  failed. 
His  soul  is  not  satisfied.  But  does  he  give  up?  Not  he. 
His  soul  is  unconquerable.     He  has  done  the  thing  he  planned 

to  do: 

"I  have  subdued  my  life  to  the  one  purpose 

Whereto  I  ordained  it ; "  ^ 
"I  have  made  my  life  consist  of  one  idea."  ^ 

True,  this  has  brought  him  naught  but  disappointment, 

"grey  hair,  faded  hands, 
And  furrowed  brow."  * 

His  life  is  a  "parched  sand-waste.**  ^    He  exclaims : 

"Oh,  bitter;  very  bitter  ! 

And  more  bitter. 
To  fear  a  deeper  curse,  an  inner  ruin."  ^ 

But  he  is  not  giving  up.  The  alluring  thought  of  rest,^ 
of  being  lost  among  his  fellows,^  he  puts  away,^  and  prays 
God  only  to  keep  him  from  madness : 

"  Spare  my  mind  alone  I 
All  else  I  will  endure.  .  .  . 
Crush  not  my  mind,  dear  God,  though  I  be  crushed  ! "  ^ 

He  has  no  idea  of  giving  up.    He  prays  for  strength  whereby 

to  fight : 

"Give  but  one  hour  of  my  first  energy, 
Of  that  invincible  faith,  but  only  one  \"  ^^ 

e.  Five  years  later,  in  Basel,  his  failure  he  feels  still  more 
keenly.  So  long  he  had  followed  the  quest  of  knowledge 
that,  when  he  tried  to  find  love  and  joy,  he  could  not : 

» P.  26,  u.  72,  73,  ^         2  p.  27, 1. 25. 

8P.  28, 11. 16, 17.  -»?.  27,1.  3. 

"  P.  27, 11. 71, 72.  « p.  26, 11.  32-40. 

'  P.  26,  ll.  40  sqq.  8  P.  26, 11.  46  sqq. 

9  P.  28,  u.  26, 27, 37.  10  P.  28, 11.  ss>  54. 


PARACELSUS  219 

"  God  !  how  I  essayed 
To  live  like  that  mad  poet,  for  a  while, 
To  love  alone ;  and  how  I  felt  too  warped 
And  twisted  and  deformed!"  ^ 

He  cries  out : 

"How  can  I  change  my  soul?"  ^ 

"I  still  must  hoard  and  heap  and  class  all  truths 
With  one  ulterior  purpose :  I  must  know!"  ' 

It  is  too  late  to  change  the  bent  of  his  mind.  But  there  is 
no  satisfaction  in  it.  He  disparages  what  men  might  call 
his  success.  Michal  had  told  him  in  the  beginning  that  he 
would  ''succeed  .  .  .  and  yet  be  wretched."     He  declares 

now: 

"I  have  not  been  successful,  and  yet  am 
Most  miserable."  ^ 
He  says : 

"You  may  have  it  told  in  broken  sobs  one  day, 
And  scalding  tears  ere  long."  ^ 
He  says : 

"You  know  my  hopes ; 
I  am,  assured,  at  length,  those  hopes  were  vain ; 
That  truth  is  just  as  far  from  me  as  ever ; 
That  I  have  thrown  my  life  away."  ® 

"Love,  hope,  fear,  faith  —  these  make  humanity; 
These  are  its  sign  and  note  and  character, 
And  these  I  have  lost !  —  gone,  shut  from  me  for  ever, 
Like  a  dead  friend  safe  from  unkindness  more!"  ^ 

But  does  he  give  up?    Not  he.    Note  his  unconquerable 

soul: 

"lam 
A  man  yet :  I  need  never  humble  me. 
I  would  have  been  —  something,  I  know  not  what ; 
But  though  I  cannot  soar,  I  do  not  crawl."  ^ 
1  P.  41,  U.  72-75.  2  p.  41^165, 

»  P.  41, 11.  83,  84.  *  P.  35, 11.  74  sqq. ;  p.  36, 11.  64,  65. 

5  P.  37,  U.  36,  37.  8P.  39,  11.48-si. 

'  P,  45,  U.  58-61.  8  P.  42,  U.  67-70. 


220  BROWNING  STUDIES 

He  is  but  pausing  to  take  breath.    The  professor's  chair 

in  Basel  is  not  his  goal.^    His  soul  must  be  satisfied. 

/.  Two  years  later,  out  of  the  chair  in  the  University, 

he  is  ready  to  begin  life  again,  with  iron  determination, 

with  his  old  purposes  but  with  new  methods  of  pursuing 

them: 

"I 

Am  merely  setting  out  once  more,  embracing 
My  earliest  aims  again!  .  .  . 
The  aims  —  not  the  old  means."  ^ 

"I  will  fight  the  battle  out ;  a  little  spent 
Perhaps,  but  still  an  able  combatant. 
You  look  at  my  grey  hair  and  furrowed  brow? 
But  I  can  turn  even  weakness  to  account."  ^ 

Even  though  he  foresees  that  there  will  be  no  satisfaction 
in  it,  that  the  morn  will  dawn  and  show  the  discovery  in  his 
night's  toil  worthless  —  the  passage  beginning 

"for  night  is  come, 
And  I  betake  myself  to  study  again,"  * 

one  of  the  most  remarkable  passages  in  the  poem  —  still 

he  will  not  give  up : 

"This  life  of  mine 
Must  be  lived  out  and  a  grave  thoroughly  earned."  ^ 

He  is  Hke  a  gladiator  ready  for  the  fight,  and  with  bitter 
sarcasm  he  taunts  the  rabble  to  take 

"the  snug  back-seats 
And  leave  a  clear  arena  for  the  brave 
About  to  perish  for  your  sport."  ® 

*  In  speaking  of  Paracelsus'  movements  as  indicated  in  the  poem,  we 
must,  of  course,  adopt  the  plan  of  Paracelsus'  life  which  Browning  has  in 
mind.  And  Browning  associates  with  Paracelsus  at  Basel  his  lecturing  in 
the  University  more  than  his  being  also  city-physician.  See  e.g.  p.  35,  11. 
31-49;  p.  47, 11. 12-67. 

2  P.  48, 11.  30-32,  35.  3  p.  49^  u.  38_4i,  4  p,  30^  11^  62-79. 

6  P.  SO,  11.  38,  39-  «P.  54,11.  25-28. 


PARACELSUS  221 

g.  Thirteen  years  more,  and  Paracelsus  is  dying;  and 
his  mind  wanders  at  first,  but  always  with  the  same  im- 
quenchable  aspirations,  —  he  is  no  nearer  surrender  than 

in  his  youth: 

"Rather  give 
The  supernatural  consciousness  of  strength 
Which  fed  my  youth!    Only  one  hour  of  that, 
With  thee  to  help."  * 

"Well,  onward  though  alone!    Small  time  remains, 
And  much  to  do."  ^ 

And  then  as  his  wandering  mind  clears  and  he  realizes 
that  the  end  is  come,  he  struggles  to  his  feet  and  makes 
Festus  put  on  him  his  gown  and  sword  again,^  and  there  he 
gives  his  summary  about  htmian  life  and  destiny,  the  fruit- 
age of  all  his  struggle,  and  dies  without  surrender.    The 

same  invincible  courage: 

"If  I  stoop 
Into  a  dark  tremendous  sea  of  cloud,  • 
It  is  but  for  a  time : 

I  shall  emerge  one  day."  * 

h.  Such  is  the  human  soul  as  Robert  Browning  would 
have  it  —  the  unconquerable  soul. 

2.    The  Secret  of  Human  Life  —  7^  it  Knowledge  or  Love  ? 

a.  The  quotations  already  made  have  set  before  us  clearly 
Paracelsus'  life-purpose.  We  need  not  repeat  them  nor 
quote  others  like  them.  Paracelsus  devotes  his  life  to 
knowledge  and  leaves  love  out.  And  knowledge  could  not 
satisfy  his  soul.  It  is  too  late  when  he  sees  his  mistake. 
His  mental  habits  are  formed.  He  has  missed  life  where  he 
thought  he  would  find  it.  And  the  realization  of  how  he  has 
failed  of  life's  fulfillment  haunts  him  all  his  days,  and  runs 

1  P.  57, 11.  70-74.  *  P.  57, 1.  82-p.  58, 1. 1. 

»  P.  61, 11.  10-24.  «  P.  65,  U.  14-15, 18. 


222  BROWNING  STUDIES 

in  his  deKrium  on  his  death-bed.  His  broken  words  there 
show  the  thought  which  has  tortured  him  all  the  years  since 
he  saw  Aprile  die  in  Constantinople  and  learned  too  late 
that  his  putting  love  out  of  his  life  had  starved  his  soul. 
On  his  death-bed  he  cries: 

"  Cruel !    I  seek  her  *  now  —  I  kneel  —  I  shriek  — 
I  clasp  her  vesture  —  but  she  fades,  still  fades ; 
And  she  is  gone ;  sweet  human  love  is  gone! "  ^ 

It  is  significant  that  his  mind  constantly  reverts  to  Aprile 
and  he  thinks  Aprile  is  there  with  him.  This  shows  how 
much  Aprile  has  been  in  his  thoughts  throughout  the  years. 
He  imagines  now  that  he  has  heard  Aprile  all  night ;  he 
has  tried  to  get  to  Aprile  but  could  not  for  a  cold  hand  on  his 

breast.^ 

"Ask  him  if  Aprile 
Knows  as  he  Loves  —  if  I  shall  Love  and  Know."  * 

h.  For  Aprile,  the  poet,  had  for  his  great  life-purpos  j  love, 
and  left  knowledge  out : 

"I  would  LOVE  infinitely  and  be  loved."  ^ 

He  would  live  in  the  lives  of  others  and  make  their  joy  his 
own.  But  he  too  failed,  and  died  years  ago  in  Constan- 
tinople. 

c.  These  two  are  the  only  great  life-purposes  with  which 
Browning  deals  in  the  poem.  The  two  key- words  know 
and  LOVE  he  frequently  prints  in  small  capitals  in  scenes  I 
and  II,  to  indicate  to  the  reader  their  nature.^  Browning 
shows  how  much  these  two  involve :  love  leading  to  joy, 
knowledge  leading  to  power.    It  is  well  to  bear  this  in  mind, 

1  i.e.  Love,  as  is  plain  from  the  third  line  quoted. 

2  P.  57,11.15-17.  3  p.  55^  11.  67-70,  78. 

<  p.  55,  U.  76,  77.  «  P.  30, 1.3;  cf.1.38. 

«  e.g.  p.  19, 1. 12 ;  p.  24, 1. 35 ;  p.  30, 11.  2, 3 ;  p.  32, 1.  74. 


PARACELSUS  223 

for  Browning,  having  once  shown  that  joy  comes  from 
love  and  that  power  comes  from  knowledge,  sometimes 
speaks  of  Aprile's  life-purpose  as  joy  and  Paracelsus' 
life-purpose  as  power.  It  is  love  bringing  joy,  knowledge 
bringing  power. 

d.  And  finding  that  each  has  failed.  Browning  puts  his 
resultant  conclusion  that  Paracelsus  and  Aprile  are  "halves 
of  one  dissevered  world"  and  that  the  lover  must  know 
and  the  knower  must  love,  before  they  can  be  saved.^  The 
true  poise  of  Ufe  is  an  equilibrimn  between  knowledge  and 
love.  Browning  speaks  through  the  dying  lips  of  Para- 
celsus : 

"love  preceding 
Power,  and  with  much  power,  always  much  more  love."  * 

"Let  men 
Regard  me,  and  the  poet  dead  long  ago 
Who  loved  too  rashly ;  and  shape  forth  a  third 
And  better-tempered  spirit,  warned  by  both."  ^ 

That  is,  from  the  experience  of  one  who  followed  knowledge 
and  power  too  much  and  the  experience  of  one  who  followed 
love  and  joy  too  much,  we  gather  that  the  true  Hfe  is  the 
Ufe  poised  with  its  just  measure  of  knowledge  and  power 
balanced  by  its  just  measure  of  love  and  joy. 
3.   The  Realization  of  God's  Part  in  Human  Affairs. 

a.  This  is  evident  to  even  the  most  casual  reader  of  the 
poem.  The  poem  is  saturated  with  the  recognition  of 
God.  The  appeal  to  Him  in  all  moments  of  crisis  is  very 
striking,  taking  the  form  of  sudden  prayers. 

b.  Paracelsus'  life-plans  are  begun,  carried  on,  and 
ended  in  God,  as  far  as  he  can  understand  what  God's 
will  is.     This  is  the  source  of  his  confidence. 

(i)  He  feels  that  a  voice  from  ''the  Eternal  Not  Our- 

1  P.  33, 11. 10-13.  *  P.  64,  U.  61, 62.  3  P.  64, 1. 89-p.  6s,  1. 3. 


224 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


selves"  has  whispered  to  him  and  given  him  this  thirst 
for  knowledge/  and  has  promised  him : 

"Be  happy,  my  good  soldier ;  I  am  by  thee, 
Be  sure,  even  to  the  end!  "^ 

And  Paracelsus  will  live  his  Hfe  feeling  that  an  intimate 
tie  connects  him  with  our  God,^ 

"  God  helping,  God  directing  everywhere."  * 
"Be  sure  that  God 
Ne'er  dooms  to  waste  the  strength  he  deigns  impart ! "  ^ 
"Be  sure  they  sleep  not  whom  (jod  needs! "  ® 

It  is  in  God's  guidance  that  he  goes : 

"I  go  to  prove  my  soul! 
I  see  my  way  as  birds  their  trackless  way. 
I  shall  arrive!  what  tirne,  what  circuit  first, 
I  ask  not :  but  unless  God  send  his  hail 
Or  blinding  fireballs,  sleet  or  stifling  snow. 
In  some  time,  his  good  time,  I  shall  arrive : 
He  guides  me  and  the  bird.    In  his  good  time ! "  ^ 

(2)  In  his  disappointment  and  bitterness  of  soul,  still 
it  is  to  God  that  Paracelsus  turns : 

"Yet  God  is  good :  I  started  sure  of  that, 

And  why  dispute  it  now?"  ^ 
"God,  that  created  all  things,  can  renew!"  • 

At  Basel,  in  his  bitterness,  he  almost  loses  confidence. 
He  speaks  to  Festus  impatiently  about 

"The  constant  talk  men  of  your  stamp  keep  up 
Of  God's  will,  as  they  style  it,"  10 

1  P.  21, 1.  68-p.  22, 1.  23.  2  P.  22, 11. 19,  20. 

8  P.  19, 1.  89-p.  20, 1. 1.  4  P.  20, 1.  4. 

^ P.  19, 11.  75,  76.  'P.  19,1.82. 

'  P.  22, 11.  34-40.  8  p,  28, 11.  58,  59. 

9P.  28,1.  69.  "  P.  39,  U.  59,60. 


PARACELSUS  22$ 

and  says : 

"I  know  as  much  of  any  will  of  God 
As  knows  some  dumb  and  tortured  brute  what  Man, 
His  stern  lord,  wills  from  the  perplexing  blows 
That  plague  him  every  way."  ^ 

But  he  soon  recovers  his  old  realization  that  God*s  will  is 
the  thing  on  which  he  must  rely.    Two  years  later  he 

says: 

"I  .  .  .  take  again 
My  fluttering  pulse  for  evidence  that  God 
Means  good  to  me,  will  make  my  cause  his  own."  * 

He  holds  that  each  man  doing  his  work,  finding  his  self- 
fulfillment,  filling  his  place  in  the  world,  is  glorifying  God : 

"  'Tis  vain  to  talk  of  forwarding 
God's  glory  otherwise ; 
We  are  his  glory ;  and  if  we  be  glorious, 
Is  not  the  thing  achieved?"  ' 

(3)  And  in  the  closing  scene,  Paracelsus  feels  that  his 
last  speech  is  "God's  message;"  ^  and  his  "wretched  cell" 
becomes  "a  shrine,  for  here  God  speaks  to  men"  through 
him.^  And  when  he  dies,  it  is  but  going  "joyous  back  to 
God."  •  Paracelsus'  summary  of  the  destiny  of  humanity 
and  of  God's  joy  in  His  universe  is  so  complete  that  it  is 
hard  to  quote  it  in  fragments.    With  the  eye  of  a  seer, 

he  comprehends 

"what  God  is,  what  we  are, 
What  Ufe  is  —  how  God  tastes  an  infinite  joy 
In  infinite  ways  —  one  everlasting  bUss, 
From  whom  all  being  emanates,  all  power 
Proceeds,  in  whom  is  life  for  evermore."  ' 

1  P.  39,  U.  65-68.  « P.  so,  U.  81-83. 

•  P.  S3, 11.  16,  17,  20,  21.  *  P.  60,  11.  10,  II. 

» P.  61, 11.  21-23.  "P.  61,1.  49. 
'  P.  62, 11.  25-29. 


226  BROWNING  STUDIES 

In  each  change  of  Nature, 

"God  renews 
His  ancient  rapture."  * 

But  when  Man  appears,  a  new  meaning  is  in  all  Nature. 
Man  is  still  in  the  process  of  developing,  of  coming  into  his 
own. 

"But  in  completed  man  begins  anew 
A  tendency  to  God."  ^ 

"For  God  is  glorified  in  man." ' 

And  as  Paracelsus  passes  into  the  unknown  Country,  his 
triumphant  words  are : 

"I  press  God's  lamp 

Close  to  my  breast ;  its  splendour,  soon  or  late, 

Will  pierce  the  gloom."  * 

c.  Festus'  faith  in  God  is  hardly  less  strong  than  that  of 
Paracelsus,  and  is  even  more  beautiful.  Notice  Festus 
as  he  watches  by  Paracelsus'  death-bed  before  Paracelsus 
rouses : 

"  God  !    Thou  art  love !    I  build  my  faith  an  that. 
So  doth  thy  right  hand  guide  us  through  the  world 
Wherein  we  stumble."  ^ 

"Save  him,  dear  God ;  it  will  be  like  thee :  bathe  him 
In  light  and  Hfe."  « 

"I  know  thee,  who  hast  kept  my  path,  and  made 
Light  for  me  in  the  darkness,  tempering  sorrow 
So  that  it  reached  me  like  a  solemn  joy ; 
It  were  too  strange  that  I  should  doubt  thy  love."  ^ 

"The  quiet  place  beside  thy  feet, 
Reserved  for  me,  was  ever  in  my  thoughts."  * 

»P.  62,  11.  63,  64.  « P.  63,  U.  65, 66. 

"P- 64, 1.8.  *  P.  6s,  11. 16-18. 

6  P.  55, 11.  9, 12, 13.  6  p.  55^  u,  24,  25. 

» P.  55, 11.  29-32.  «  P.  55, 11.  35,  36. 


PARACELSUS  227 

When  he  tries  to  stimulate  Paracelsus  to  say  something,  he 
rebukes  himself : 

"Better  be  mute  and  see  what  God  shall  send."  * 

And  when  Paracelsus  does  speak,  Festus  assures  him : 
"God  shall  take  thee  to  his  breast,  dear  spirit."  ^ 

And  as  the  end  draws  near,  then  Festus'  soul  flames  up  in 
a  cry  to  God  for  mercy  on  Paracelsus,  —  perhaps  the  finest 
devotion  to  a  friend  you'll  find  in  Literature,  and  such  a 
faith  that  he  dares  to  challenge  God  in  his  friend's  behalf : 

"I  am  for  noble  Aureole,  God! 
I  am  upon  his  side,  come  weal  or  woe. 
His  portion  shall  be  mine.  I 

Reward  him  or  I  waive 
Reward!    If  thou  canst  find  no  place  for  him, 
He  shall  be  king  elsewhere,  and  I  will  be 
His  slave  for  ever.    There  are  two  of  us." ' 

d.  It  should  be  added  that  both  the  faith  of  Paracelsus 
and  the  faith  of  Festus  are  simply  Browning's  own  faith  as 
to  God's  part  in  human  affairs. 
4.  *'  The  Power  of  an  Endless  Life^ 
The  confidence  in  Immortality  shines  out  through  the 
poem  in  every  stage  of  Paracelsus'  experience.  In  scene  I, 
he  says : 

"See  this  soul  of  ours! 
How  it  strives  weakly  in  the  child,  is  loosed 
In  manhood,  clogged  by  sickness,  back  compelled 
By  age  and  waste,  set  free  at  last  by  death."  * 

Even  in  the  bitter  disappointment  of  later  years,  he  ex-" 
claims : 

"I  had  immortal  feelings ;  such  shall  never 
Be  wholly  quenched :  no,  no!"  *» 

*  P.  55,1.64.  «P.  59,1.  23. 

»  P.  59,  U.  47-49,  SI-S4.       *  P.  24,  IL  61-64.       »  P.  42,  U.  83,  84. 


228  BROWNING  STUDIES 

Festus  says,  in  Paracelsus'  disappointment : 

"It  is  our  trust 
That  there  is  yet  another  world  to  mend 
All  error  and  mischance."  ^ 

And  Paracelsus  hardly  feels  then  the  comfort  of  that 
thought.  But  two  years  later,  when  he  learns  that  Michal, 
who  had  become  Festus'  wife,  is  dead  and  buried,  Para- 
celsus says : 

"Know,  then,  you  did  not  ill  to  trust  your  love 
To  the  cold  earth :  I  have  thought  much  of  it : 
For  I  believe  we  do  not  wholly  die. 

I  think  the  soul  can  never 
Taste  death. 

Take  it  as  my  trust,  she  is  not  dead."  ^ 

And  on  his  own  death-bed,  Paracelsus  realizes : 

"Truly  there  needs  another  life  to  come ! "  ' 

and  argues  that,  without  its  fulfillment  beyond  death,  this 

life  is 

"a  poor  cheat,  a  stupid  bungle, 
A  wretched  failure."  * 

And  Festus  says  to  the  dying  man : 

"I  bid  thee  enter  gloriously  thy  rest."  ^ 

Paracelsus  finds  that  it  is  only  that  *'the  storm  of  life 
subsides."  ^    He  says : 

"And  this  is  death :  I  understand  it  all. 
New  being  waits  me ;  new  perceptions  must 
Be  born  in  me  before  I  plunge  therein ; 
Which  last  is  Death's  affair ;  and  while  I  speak, 
Minute  by  minute  he  is  filling  me 
With  powei::  .  .  .  my  foot  is  on  the  threshold 
Of  boundless  life." ' 

»  P.  45,  11-  39-41.        2  P.  54,  U.  9-11, 13, 14, 17.         '  P-  57,  L  76. 
*  P.  57,  U.  79,  80.  6  P.  59, 1.  46. 

•P.  60,1.21.  ''P.  60,  U.  48-54. 


PARACELSUS  229 

And  as  his  eyes  close  in  death : 

"If  I  stoop 
Into  a  dark  tremendous  sea  of  cloud, 
It  is  but  for  a  time ;  I  press  God's  lamp 
Close  to  my  breast ;  its  splendour,  soon  or  late, 
Will  pierce  the  gloom :  I  shall  emerge  one  day."  * 

ip.  6s,  U.  14-18. 


XI 

PIPPA  PASSES 
Pp. 174-195 

Pippa  Passes  was  published  in  1841,  when  Browning  was 
29  years  old.  It  was  the  first  in  the  series  of  eight  pam- 
phlets known  as  Bells  and  Pomegranates.  When  Pippa 
Passes  was  written,  Browning  was  living  in  England  but 
had  made  a  journey  to  Italy  in  1838,  —  a  journey  which 
contributed  so  much  to  Sordello,  published  in  1840.  Pippa 
Passes,  when  it  was  finished,  lay  for  some  time  in  Browning's 
desk  without  a  pubHsher.  But  he  finally  arranged  with 
Edward  Moxon  to  bring  it  out  in  pamphlet  form,  very 
cheap,  sixteen  pages,  two  columns  to  the  page.  The  poem 
attracted  little  attention:  few  cared  either  to  find  fault 
with  it  or  to  commend  it.  And  yet  it  is  one  of  the  daintiest 
and  one  of  the  most  artistic  works  of  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  As  one  of  the  best  critics  of  Browning 
has  said :  "Pippa  Passes  will  be  an  enduring  strength  and 
pleasure  to  all  who  love  tenderly  and  think  widely."  ^ 

I.  The  Place  and  the  Date  of  the  Action 

I.  The  poem  concerns  itself  with  Asolo,  a  little  walled 
city  of  5000  people  at  the  base  of  a  hill  in  the  province  of 
Treviso,  north  Italy,  33  miles  northwest  of  Venice.  North 
Italy  is  famous  for  its  silk  industry.    There  was  a  silk  mill 

1  Stopford  A.  Brooke,  The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning,  New  York,  1902, 
p.  241. 

230 


PIPPA   PASSES  231 

at  Asolo  when  Browning  wrote  the  poem,  but  it  is  no  longer 
in  operation.  Browning  visited  the  town  in  his  first  Italian 
travel  and  calls  it  ''our  delicious  Asolo."  ^  Forty  years 
later  he  returned  to  it,  and  was  very  fond  of  the  place  to 
the  end.  He  spent  some  weeks  there  the  last  autumn  of 
his  life.  It  is  from  the  town  of  Asolo  that  he  derives  the 
name  of  his  last  volume  of  poems,  AsolandOj  published  on 
the  day  he  died. 

2.  The  date  when  the  events  in  Pippa  Passes  take  place 
can  be  approximately  fixed : 

a.  The  north  of  Italy  is  under  Austrian  rule,  as  is  very 
evident  from  the  presence  of  Austrian  police  at  the  end  of 
Noon,  and  the  conversation  between  Luigi  and  his  mother 
in  Evening.     Note  especially  Luigi's  reference  to 

"How  first  the  Austrians  got  these  provinces, 
—  Never  by  conquest  but  by  cunning."  ^ 

In  1797  by  the  treaty  of  Campo-Formio,  Austria  gained 
possession  of  Venetia,^  a  large  division  of  north  Italy,  but 
lost  it  to  France  in  1805.  But  by  act  of  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  (its  final  act  dated  June  9,  181 5),  Austria  received 
all  the  Italian  territory  she  had  held  and  Lombardy^  in 
addition.  This  gave  her  most  of  the  provinces  north  of 
the  Po,  and  made  her  the  dominating  power  in  all  Italy. 
This  position  she  continued  to  hold  until  she  lost  Lombardy 
in  1859  and  Venetia  in  1866.^ 

b.  Prince  Metternich-Winneburg  is  living : 

"Says  he  should  like  to  be  Prince  Metternich."  ^ 

1  In  Sordello,  p.  134,  I.  55.  2  p_  jgg^  u,  23,  25. 

3  Venetia  comprises  now  eight  provinces. 

*  Lombardy,  lying  to  the  west  of  Venetia,  covers  also  eight  provinces. 

^Luigi's  words,  p.  189,  1.  26,  "That  treaty  whereby  .  .  .  "probably 
refer  to  the  treaty  of  1797,  but  may  refer  to  the  act  of  the  Congress  of  Vienna  : 
i.e.  he  may  be  far  enough  from  181 5  so  that  his  language  in  line  29  is  appro- 
priate, «  P.  187, 11.  23,  24. 


232 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


This  statesman,  so  hated  by  Italian  patriots,  was  Minister 
of  Foreign  Afifairs  for  the  Austrian  government  from  1809 
to  1848,  and  also  Chancellor  1821-48.  He  died  in  Vienna 
in  1859.  The  fact  that  Browning's  poem  was  written 
before  1841  narrows  the  possible  range  of  date. 

c.  Francis  I,  Emperor  of  Austria,  is  the  oppressor  against 

whom  Luigi  is  so  stirred : 

"Old  Franz, 
Come  down  and  meet  your  fate."  ^ 

He  became  Emperor  in  1792  and  died  in  1835.  His  death 
establishes  the  superior  limit.  That  the  date  of  the  action 
falls  in  the  closing  years  of  his  reign  is  plain  from  the  fact 
that  Luigi  calls  him  old  Franz  ^  and  Luigi's  mother  also 
speaks  of  him  as  old.^ 

d.  Luigi  is  suspected  of  being  connected  with  the  Car- 
bonari.^ The  Carbonari  were  a  secret  society  of  patriotic 
Italians,  organized  for  the  purpose  of  throwing  off  foreign 
domination.  The  society  originated  in  Naples  not  long 
before  1814,^  against  the  rule  of  the  French  there,^  but 
soon  spread  all  over  Italy.  The  Carbonari  movement  was 
partly  crushed  by  Austria,  and  was  gradually  absorbed 
into  or  superseded  by  Mazzini's  ''Young  Italy"  society 
organized  in  183 1. 

1  P.  187, 11.  83,  84. 

2  It  cannot  be  another  Francis  meant.  Franz  Joseph  I  did  not  come  to 
the  throne  till  1848. 

3  P.  187,11.93,94. 
*  P.  187,  61-66. 

^  It  was  in  1 8 14  that  the  Carbonari  became  known  as  an  important  revolu- 
tionary element  in  the  kingdom  of  Naples.  The  edict  issued  Aug.  15,  1814, 
by  Cardinals  Consalvi  and  Pacca,  against  secret  societies,  was  especially 
directed  against  this  society. 

'  Joachim  Murat,  a  French  marshal,  conspicuous  for  ability  as  a  cavalry 
commander,  brother-in-law  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  was  king  of  Naples 
1808-1815. 


PIPPA  PASSES  233 

« 

e.   Silvio   Pellico   is   considered   by  Luigi's  mother   as 

typical  of  the  writers  who  are  stirring  up  the  people : 
"Your  Pellicos  and  writers  for  effect."  ^ 

Pellico  was  arrested  by  the  Austrian  govemmenjt  in  1820 
and  imprisoned  till  1830.     He  died  in  1854.  -^a 

/.  We  gain  no  assistance  from  Luigi's  mention  of  former 
conspirators  against  Austria : 

"Andrea  from  his  exile, 
Pier  from  his  dungeon,  Gualtier  from  his  grave!"  ^ 

Luigi  gives  the  names  famiharly,  and  it  is  difficult  to  identify 
them,  and  even  if  this  could  be  done,  it  would  hardly  help 
to  fix  the  date  more  closely. 

g.  The  marks  of  time  of  most  account  are  those  touching 
the  Emperor  and  Prince  Metternich.  These  do  not  abso- 
lutely determine  the  date  but  they  define  it  pretty  narrowly, 
and  the  other  more  general  indications  are  in  harmony 
with  them.  We  may  say  unhesitatingly  that  the  scene 
of  Pippa  Passes  is  laid  near  the  end  of  the  reign  of  the 
Austrian  Emperor  Francis  I.  Probably  some  time  1830- 
3 5  is  what  Browning  had  in  mind.  Much  of  the  information 
as  to  local  conditions  came  from  his  visit  of  1838,  when 
things  were,  no  doubt,  in  practically  the  same  shape  as  a 
few  years  earlier. 

II.  The  Structure  of  the  Poem 

1.  Browning  calls  it,  in  the  heading,  "A  Drama."  This 
it  can  be  called  in  a  general  way.  It  is  made  up  of  frag- 
ments, or  scenes,  whose  only  bond  of  unity  is  Pippa  ^  her- 
self, —  glimpses  of  human  lives  touched  by  her  passing. 

2.  There  is  an  Introduction,  four  Scenes,  and  an  Epilogue. 

»P.  187,1.  88.  2p.ig9  11,10  11' 

'  Pippa,  "short  for  Felippa."     See  p.  187, 11. 32,  33 ;  cf,  p.  193, 11.  87-89. 


^34 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


a.  It  is  New  Year's  day.  Pippa  springs  out  of  bed, 
resolved  to  make  the  most  of  this  her  one  holiday.  She 
has  to  work  in  the  silk  mills  all  the  rest  of  the  year.  She 
thinks  of  those  whom  she  considers  the  happiest  in  Asolo. 
There  is  no  reason  why  she  cannot  imagine  herself  in  their 
place,  each  in  turn,  this  New  Year's  holiday. 

b.  She  goes  out  into  the  city,  and  in  the  course  of  the 
day,  unknown  to  herself,  her  life,  her  presence,  touches, 
one  after  another,  the  lives  of  these  very  men  and  women 
she  had  had  in  mind,  and  at  critical  moments  her  songs, 
as  she  passes  where  they  are,  bring  them  to  momentous 
decisions  or  waken  in  them  tremendous  revulsions. 

c.  She  comes  back  to  her  room  at  night,  unconscious  of 
what  she  has  done  and  half  dissatisfied  with  her  holiday. 

3.  A  curious,  yet  very  reasonable,  feature  of  the  poem's 
construction  is  what  we  might  call  interludes  between  the 
scenes.  Browning  has  placed  such  interludes  at  the  end 
of  scenes  I,  II,  and  III,  to  prepare  us  in  each  case  for  an 
understanding  of  the  scene  that  follows.  They  are  in  the 
nature  of  conversations  which  we  overhear  as  Pippa  is 
passing  from  the  point  where  her  presence  has  come  de- 
cisively into  the  lives  of  others  to  where  its  power  is  felt  in 
another  group.  How  these  interludes  help  we  quickly 
appreciate : 

a.  After  Scene  I,  while  Pippa  is  walking  out  toward  a 
house  that  "looks  over  Orcana  valley,"  we  hear  the  art- 
students  from  Venice  talking  of  the  trick  they  are  playing 
on  Jules,  who  has  been  one  of  their  number.  Thus  we 
understand  the  condition  of  affairs  in  Scene  II,  where 
Pippa's  song  as  she  passes  at  the  critical  moment  brings 
Jules  to  a  decision  which  defeats  his  fellow-students'  plot 
and  opens  to  him  and  Phene  a  new  life. 

b.  And  at  the  end  of  Scene  II,  as  Pippa  goes  on  from 


PIPPA   PASSES  235 

this  house  to  the  ruined  castle  on  the  hill  above  Asolo,  we 
hear  the  Austrian  police  talking  with  an  English  vagabond, 
Bluphocks,  and  get  some  hints  not  only  of  the  police^s 
attitude  toward  Luigi,  which  help  us  understand  Scene 
III,  but  also  a  hint  of  certain  designs  on  Pippa  herself. 

c.  After  Pippa' s  song  in  passing  in  Scene  III  has  sealed 
Luigi's  decision  to  do  a  bloody  self-sacrificing  deed,  she 
passes  on  toward  the  Cathedral  and  the  Bishop's  brother's 
house,  and  we  hear  the  poor  outcast  girls  who  are  sitting  on 
the  Cathedral  steps  talking  and  giving  us  further  inklings 
of  the  plot  in  which  Pippa  herself  is  unconsciously  involved, 
—  thus  preparing  us  to  understand  Scene  IV. 

d.  And  in  the  fourth  scene,  as  the  Monsignor  wavers 
before  the  dastardly  suggestion  of  the  Intendant,  who  plots 
to  have  Pippa  seduced  and  ruined,  she  herself  passes  singing, 
and  the  Monsignor  springs  up  and  calls  his  attendants  to 
gag  and  bind  the  villain.  And  so  Pippa  goes  on  homeward, 
never  knowing  that  she  has  been  the  decisive  influence  in 
several  lives  that  day  and  has  saved  herself. 

It  should  be  added  that  in  each  of  the  interludes,  Pippa 
is  naturally  introduced :  some  of  the  speakers  see  her  near 
or  have  noticed  her  as  she  went  by  a  few  minutes  ago.^ 

III.  The  Songs  in  the  Poem 

I.  There  are  only  a  few  songs  in  the  poem  except  Pippa's 
own. 

a.  There  is  a  little  snatch  which  Sebald  sings  at  the 
beginning  of  Scene  I :  ^ 

"Let  the  watching  Uds  wink  ! 
Day's  a-blaze  with  eyes,  think  ! 
Deep  into  the  night,  drink ! " 

1  P.  182, 11.  71-73 ;  p.  186, 11.  56,  57 ;  p.  191, 11.  26-29, 46-51. 
*  P.  177,  between  11.  9  and  10. 


236  'BROWNING  STUDIES 

b.  There  is  what  Phene  repeats  to  Jules  in  Scene  II :  ^ 

"I  am  a  painter  who  cannot  paint," 

and  so  on.    But  this,  although  unlike  the  metre  of  the 
body  of  the  poem,  is  not  meant  for  a  song. 

c.  And  there  is  the  sweet  pitiful  song  sung  by  one  of  the 
poor  girls  sitting  on  the  Cathedral  steps  —  ''You'll  love  me 

yet":  2 

"You'll  love  me  yet !  —  and  I  can  tarry 
Your  love's  protracted  growing : 
June  reared  that  bunch  of  flowers  you  carry, 
From  seeds  of  April's  sowing. 

I  plant  a  heart! ul  now :  some  seed 

At  least  is  sure  to  strike, 
And  yield  —  what  you'll  not  pluck  indeed, 

Not  love,  but,  may  be,  like. 

You'll  look  at  least  on  love's  remains, 

A  grave's  one  violet : 
Your  look?  —  that  pays  a  thousand  pains. 

What's  death  ?    You'll  love  me  yet ! " 

2.   But  the  famous  songs  in  the  poem  are  Pippa's  own. 
a.  As  she  dresses  herself  in  the  morning,  she  sings  the 
New  Year's  hymn :  ^ 

"All  service  ranks  the  same  with  God." 

1  P.  184, 11.  71-82;  p.  i8s,  11.  1-7,  13-45. 

2  P.  191,11.34-45. 

'  P.  176,  11.  79-90.  In  these  two  stanzas  the  main  idea  is  that  it  is  the 
quality  of  the  service  that  counts,  not  what  men  call  its  littleness  or  great- 
ness; that  with  God  there  is  only  one  standard,  viz.  goodness;  that  what  we 
call  "a  small  event"  often  costs  as  much  pain  to  bring  to  pass  as  a  so-called 
"great  event";  that  in  a  single  deed,  whether  called  "great"  or  "small," 
power  is  put  to  the  proof.  Along  with  this  goes  the  idea  that,  if  God's 
presence  "fills  our  earth,"  each  of  us  can  work  "only  as  God  wills"  —  we 
are  "God's  puppets."    This  is  predestination  with  a  vengeance. 


PIPPA   PASSES 


237 


h.  This  same  hymn  comes  again  into  her  mind  as  she  lies 
down  at  night,  and  the  lines  of  it  are  running  in  her  thoughts 
as  she  goes  to  sleep :  ^ 

"All  service  ranks  the  same  with  God  — 
With  God,  whose  puppets,  best  and  worst, 
Are  we:  there  is  no  last  nor  first." 

So  her  New  Year's  day  is  begun  and  ended  with  the  thought 
of  our  relation  to  the  great  Father. 

c.  In  Scene  I,  Mornings  the  song  which  smites  the  sinful 
Sebald  is  "The  year's  at  the  spring"  :  ^ 

"The  year's  at  the  spring 
And  day's  at  the  morn ; 
Morning's  at  seven ; 
The  hill-side's  dew-pearled ; 
The  lark's  on  the  wing ; 
The  snail's  on  the  thorn : 
God's  in  his  heaven  — 
All's  right  with  the  world!" 

d.  In  Scene  II,  Noon,  Pippa's  song  ^  is  the  one  referring 
to  Queen  Caterina  Comaro  ("Kate  the  Queen").  She 
was  a  Venetian  lady,  born  in  1454  and  married  in  1472  to 
James  of  Lusignan,  King  of  Cyprus.  Upon  his  death  in 
1473  she  succeeded  to  the  throne,  but  in  1489  abdicated  in 
favor  of  the  Republic  of  Venice,  which  formally  annexed 
the  island.  She  returned  to  Venice,  and  the  government 
conferred  upon  her  for  Ufe  the  castle  whose  ruins  now  stand 
on  the  hill  above  Asolo.  Here  she  lived  in  affluence,  sur- 
rounded by  her  servants  and  a  briUiant  court.     She  died 

1  P.  19s,  U.  16-18. 

2  P.  180,  between  11.  3  and  4.  The  song  is  consistently  in  every  detail 
a  spring  song.  No  one  is  disturbed  by  the  fact  that  it  does  not  fit  north 
Italy  on  Jan.  i.  Its  freshness  and  cheer  make  it  very  appropriate  for  New 
Year's  day.    It  is  a  familiar  sonjg  to  Pippa,  and  now  runs  in  her  head. 

3  P.  185,  U.  61-78.  , 


238^  BROWNING  STUDIES 

in  Venice  in  15 10.  She  was  exceedingly  kind  to  the  people 
of  Asolo,  and  they  in  turn  loved  her.  It  is  altogether 
natural,  therefore,  that  there  should  be,  supposedly,  a 
famiHar  song  in  Asolo  in  which  the  Queen's  name  comes 
in  as  the  people  perhaps  liked  to  have  it,  and  that  Pippa 
should  be  singing  the  song  on  her  hoHday.  This  song, 
however,  has  little  reference  to  Queen  Caterina,  except 
bringing  her  in  in  a  sort  of  refrain.  But  the  point  of  the 
song  hits  exactly  the  circumstances  in  which  Jules  and 
Phene  are  when  they  hear  it : 

"Give  her  but  a  least  excuse  to  love  me!'* 

And  the  name  of  ''Kate  the  Queen"  has  a  power  over  Jules 
who  knows  her  history  and  incidents  which  have  been,  in 
popular  tradition,  connected  with  her  life  here.^ 

e.  In  Scene  III,  Evening,  Pippa's  song^  about  a  king 
who  lived  long  ago, 

"In  the  morning  of  the  world," 

so  different  from  the  king  who  oppresses  the  people  of 
north  Italy  now,  steels  Liugi's  heart  in  his  purpose  to  kill 
the  king  that  now  is. 

/.  In  Scene  IV,  Night,  Pippa's  song  ^  which  saves  herself 
from  the  plot  which  the  Intendant  is  unfolding  to  the 
Monsignor  is  an  exquisite  appreciation  of  Nature,  beginning 

"Overhead  the  tree-tops  meet." 

It  is  full  of  the  joy  of  innocence,  and  ends  with  God's  sud- 
denly putting  forth  His  hand  into  a  human  life. 

1  See  Jules'  words  p.  185, 1,  79-p.  186, 1.  7. 

2  P.  189,  1.  52-p.  190, 1.  28.  This  song  was  first  published,  signed  "Z,"  in 
The  Monthly  Repository,  vol.  ix,  N.  S.,  pp.  707,  708,  in  1835.  It  was  re- 
vised and  a  few  lines  were  added  before  it  was  included  in  Pippa  Passes. 

3  P.  193,  u.  98-113. 


PIPPA   PASSES  239 

IV.  The  Scenes  more  in  Detail 

We  are  ready  now  to  study  more  in  detail  the  different 
divisions  of  the  poem. 

I.  The  Introdmtiofiy  which  is  Pippa's  meditation  or 
soliloquy  before  she  goes  out,  begins  with  a  gorgeous  sun- 
rise. In  a  description  starting  with  a  line  of  one  word, 
**Day,"  the  sun  comes  up  with  a  flood  of  gold  which  over- 
flows in  a  long  rippling  line  at  the  end  of  the  first 
paragraph :  ^ 

"Flickered  in  bounds,  grew  gold,  then  overflowed  the  world." 

Notice  the  gradual  up-flooding  of  the  light : 

"Day! 
Faster  and  more  fast. 
O'er  night's  brim,  day  boils  at  last : 
Boils,  pure  gold,  o'er  the  cloud-cup's  brim 
Where  spurting  and  suppressed  it  lay, 
For  not  a  froth-flake  touched  the  rim 
Of  yonder  gap  in  the  solid  gray 
Of  the  eastern  cloud,  an  hour  away ;  ^ 
But  forth  one  wavelet,  then  another,  curled, 
Till  the  whole  simrise,  not  to  be  suppressed. 
Rose,  reddened,  and  its  seething  breast 
FUckered  in  bounds,  grew  gold,  then  overflowed  the  world." ' 

Pippa,  who  has  to  toil  the  rest  of  the  days,^  is  bound  to 
make  the  most  of  this  day  of  liberty : 

"Oh,  Day,  if  I  squander  a  wavelet  of  thee, 
Then  shame  fall  on  Asolo,  mischief  on  me!"  ^ 

ip.  174,  1.  12.  ^i.e.  an  hour  ago. 

^  Some  time  ago  a  young  man  told  me  he  had  noticed  a  sunrise  which 
behaved  in  exactly  this  way,  i.e.  the  gold  boiled  up  as  here  described. 

*  That  this  is  Pippa's  only  holiday  is  plain  from  half  a  dozen  places  in 
the  Introduction,  and  from  Ottima's  words  p.  180, 11.  5-7. 

5  P.  174,  U.  13,  20;  cf.  the  intervening  lines. 


240  DROWNING  STUDIES 

"Thy  long  blue  solemn  hours  serenely  flowing, 
Whence  earth,  we  feel,  gets  steady  help  and  good  — 
Thy  fitful  sunshine-minutes,  coming,  going, 
As  if  earth  turned  from  work  in  gamesome  mood  — 
All  shall  be  mine!"  ^ 

She  thinks  of  those  who  seem  to  her  the  most  happy  in 
Asolo.2  There  is  Ottima,  the  wife  of  Luca  Gaddi  who  owns 
the  silk  mills. ^  To  be  sure,  Luca  is  old,  but  Ottima  has  a 
paramour,  the  German  Sebald,  who  pays  her  homage. 
Then  there  are  Jules  and  Phene,  who,  Pippa  hears,  are  to 
be  married  to-day.  Then  there  are  Luigi  and  his  mother, 
whom  she  has  seen  going  into  the  turret  of  the  ruined  castle 
so  often  at  evening  and  talking  so  earnestly  together ;  she 
thinks  they  must  be  very  fond  of  each  other.  And  there 
is  the  Monsignor  expected  from  Rome  to-day  to  see  about 
the  affairs  of  his  brother  who  has  recently  died  and  to  say 
masses  for  his  brother's  soul.  Pippa  is  to-day  free  to  let 
her  fancy  run  riot:  as  the  day  goes  on  she  will  imagine 
she  is  Ottima,  Phene,  Luigi,  the  Monsignor,  and  try  to  get 
as  much  out  of  the  day  in  her  way,  aided  by  her  imagina- 
tion, as  they  themselves  can  get. 

Thus,  in  the  opening  part  of  the  poem,  the  persons  who 
are  to  be  the  actors  in  the  scenes  of  the  day  are  introduced 
to  us  —  skilfully  and  naturally.^ 

iP.  174,11.  21-25. 

2  Naturally  enough,  Pippa  goes  twice  over  the  list  of  "Asolo's  Four 
Happiest  Ones,"  the  second  time  being  after  she  had  decided  to  let  her  fancy 
run  and  put  herself  in  the  place  of  each  of  them  to-day.  Notice  how  dif- 
ferently they  are  handled  the  second  time.  Following  are  the  parallel 
passages : 

a.  Ottima  and  Sebald—  (i)  p.  175, 11.  15-20;  (2)  p.  176, 11.  3-15. 

b.  Jules  and  Phene  —  (i)  p.  175, 11.  21-26;   (2)  p.  176, 11.  16-45. 

c.  Luigi  and  his  mother  —  (i)  p.  175, 11.  27-33 ;   (2)  p.  176, 11.  46-67. 

d.  The  Monsignor  —  (i)  p.  175,  U.  33-40;  (2)  p.  176,  U.  68-75. 

3  Cf.  also  p.  180, 11.  8,  9 ;  p.  187, 11.  21,  22. 

*  Of  the  actors  who  take  part  in  the  scenes,  the  only  one  who  is  not  men- 


PIP  PA   PASSES  241 

2.    The  main  Scenes. 

a.  Scene  I,  Morning,  shows  us  a  shrub-house  in  the 
gardens  of  Luca  Gaddi's  mansion  on  the  hill-side.  Sebald, 
the  German,  and  Ottima,  Luca's  wife,  have  murdered  Luca 

the  night  before : 

"Luca  Gaddi's  murdered  corpse 
Within  there,  at  his  couch-foot,  covered  close  — 
You  cannot  rid  your  eyes  of  it."  ^ 

They  could  not  feel  like  spending  the  night  in  the  house 
after  the  murder,  and  have  spent  it  in  this  shrub-house. 
Ottima  suggests : 

"There's  one  thing  must  be  done ;  you  know  what  thing. 
Come  in  and  help  to  carry.     We  may  sleep 
Anywhere  in  the  whole  wide  house  to-night."  ^ 

But  Sebald  answers : 

"Let  him  He  there  until 
The  angels  take  him !    He  is  turned  by  this 
Off  from  his  face  beside,  as  you  will  see,"  ^ 

referring  to  the  superstitious  idea  that  murdered  persons 
will  turn  over  with  faces  toward  Heaven  —  in  mute  appeal 
for  vengeance. 

Sebald's  conscience  is  awake,'*  and  he  begins  to  turn  from 

tioned  in  the  Introductian  is  the  Intendant.  The  reason  for  this  is  plain : 
Pippa  knows  nothing  of  his  relation  to  the  affairs  of  the  Monsignor's  brother 
—  she  has  no  idea  that  he  wiU  talk  with  the  Monsignor  to-night.  It  is, 
therefore,  impossible  that  the  Intendant  should  be  mentioned  in  the  Intro- 
ductimt.  He  is  naturally  introduced  in  the  second  interlude  (p.  186, 11.  57- 
59)  and  in  the  third  (p.  191, 11.  26-29),  —  just  enough  to  prepare  us  for  his 
appearing  in  Scene  IV. 

The  actors  in  the  interludes  are  not  mentioned  in  the  Introduction^  —  be- 
cause the  interludes  are  themselves  of  an  introductory  nature. 

1  P.  178, 11.  43,  44,  48.     Cf.  the  whole  passage,  11.  36-52. 

2P.  178,11.  54-56. 

»P.  178,  U.  58-60. 

*  As  is  plain  already  from  his  tone  in  the  conversation  p.  177,  11.  37-63, 
although  he  affects  to  be  reckless  and  hardened. 


242  BROWNING  STUDIES 

Ottima  ^  for  whose  sake  he  has  done  this  murder.  He  would 
recoil  from  her,  but  she  wraps  him  about  again  in  the  old 
mesh  of  blind  infatuation  by  recalling  to  his  memory  the 
earlier  crises  of  their  sinful  love.^  This  she  does  with 
tremendous  intensity  and  subtlety.  And  Sebald  is  lost, 
—  absorbed  again  in  a  blind  passion  for  her  which  makes 
him  forget  the  enormity  of  adultery  and  murder.^  She 
sets  him  to  knot  up  her  hair,  which  has  fallen  down,  and 

commands  him : 

"Bind  it  thrice  about  my  brow ; 
Crown  me  your  queen,  your  spirit's  arbitress, 
Magnificent  in  sin.    Say  that ! "  ^ 

All  but  lost ;  for  just  as  he  binds  the  hair  about  Ottima's 

brow,  repeating 

"I  crown  you 
My  great  white  queen,  my  spirit's  arbitress, 
Magnificent  .  .  ."  ^ 

Pippa  passes,  singing 

"The  year's  at  the  spring 
And  day's  at  the  morn ; 
Morning's  at  seven ; 
The  hill-side's  dew-pearled ; 
The  lark's  on  the  wing ; 
The  snail's  on  the  thorn : 
God's  in  his  heaven  — 
All's  right  with  the  world!" 

The  words  are  like  a  dagger  to  Sebald's  soul.  He  exclaims 
in  confusion : 

"God's  in  his  heaven!    Do  you  hear  that  ?    Who  spoke ? 
You,  you  spoke!"  ^ 

*  See  the  conversation  p.  178, 1,  32-p.  179, 1. 14. 

2  P.  179, 11.  24-73. 

'  P.  179, 11.  62-65,  69,  70,  74-76.  "  P.  180, 11.  2-4. 

<  P.  179, 1.  76-p.  180, 1.  2.  8  p.  180,  II.  4,  5. 


PIPPA    PASSES  243 

He  is  disillusioned  by  Pippa's  words.     The  charm  of  Ottima 
is  gone ;   he  sees  just  what  she  is.^    He  sees  just  what  he 

has  done : 

"That  little  peasant's  voice 
Has  righted  all  again.    Though  I  be  lost, 
I  know  which  is  the  better,  never  fear, 
Of  vice  or  virtue,  purity  or  lust, 
Nature  or  trick !    I  see  what  I  have  done. 
Entirely  now  !    Oh  I  am  glad  to  feel 
Such  torments  —  let  the  world  take  credit  thence  — 
I,  having  done  my  deed,  pay  too  its  price  ! 
I  hate,  hate  —  curse  you  !     God's  in  his  heaven  ! "  * 

And  seeing  "entirely  now,"  he  draws  his  dagger  and  kills 
himself.^    His  last  words  are : 

"My  brain  is  drowned  now  —  quite  drowned :  all  I  feel 
Is  .  .  .  is,  at  swift-recurring  intervals, 
A  hurry-down  within  me,  as  of  waters 
Loosened  to  smother  up  some  ghastly  pit : 
There  they  go  —  whirls  from  a  black  fiery  sea  ! "  ^ 

h.  At  the  beginning  of  Scene  II,  Noon,  the  situation  is 
peculiar,  but  is  explained  in  the  preceding  interlude.  Cer- 
tain foreign  art-students  of  Venice  are  jealous  of  one  who 
has  been  of  their  number,^  a  young  French  sculptor,  Jules, 

ip.  180,11. 11-36. 
2  p.  180, 11.  36-44- 

'  It  is  plain  in  11.  41-43  that  he  is  about  to  stab  himself.  It  is  plain  also 
that  Ottima  (p.  180,  11.  44-51)  is  trying  to  prevent  him  from  stabbing  him- 
self, or  to  delay  him.  But  a  stage- direction  [Stahs  himself],  put  in  at  the 
proper  moment,  would  have  been  of  assistance  to  the  reader. 

*P.  180,11.52-56. 

^  Browning's  words  in  the  stage-direction  (p.  180,  between  11.  57  and  58), 
"opposite  the  house  0/ Jules,  a  young  French  statuary,  at  Possagno,"  mean 
that  Jules  is  a  maker  of  statues  and  is  working  at  Possagno,  a  short  distance 
from  Asolo.  Possagno  is  the  birthplace  of  Canova,  the  great  sculptor, 
(bom  1757,  died  1822),  and  his  tomb  is  there.  His  house  there  is  used  as  a 
museum  and  contains  models  and  casts  of  his  works.     It  is  among  these  that 


244 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


—  jealous  perhaps  because  of  his  superior  ability.  Any- 
way, they  charge  him  with  being  conceited  and  supercilious. 
Under  their  ringleader,  Lutwyche,  they  have  gotten  up 
what  they  think  is  a  good  joke  on  Jules.  They  have  written 
him  letters  purporting  to  be  from  a  young  lady  of  high  posi- 
tion who  has  admired  a  piece  of  his  work  ^  exhibited  at  the 
Academy  of  Fine  Arts  in  Venice.  They  have  kept  up  the 
deception,  using  the  name  and  describing  the  appearance 
of  a  Greek  girl  named  Phene,  an  artists*  model  furnished 
them  by  a  woman  named  Natalia.  On  the  strength  of  the 
correspondence,  Jules  has  fallen  in  love  with  the  young 
lady,  and  has  proposed  marriage.  They  have  put  Phene 
forward  to  marry  him,  and  the  upshot  of  it  all  has  come 
to  be  the  wedding  this  New  Year's  noon.  The  last  and 
most  adroit  piece  of  trickery  has 'been  their  getting  Jules  to 
consent,  on  plausible  grounds,  to  a  stipulation  that  he 
shall  not  speak  to  the  lady  until  after  they  are  married. 
Phene  has  been  taught  what  she  is  to  say  to  Jules  as  soon 
as  they  get  back  from  the  wedding.^  This  speech,^  which 
Natalia  has  compelled  her  to  learn  and  has  told  her  she 
must  say,^  is  in  ridicule  of  Jules'  love  and  gives  the  whole 


Jules  is  studying  (see  p.  i8i,  U.  67-73,  102-126).  It  is  plain  from  the 
students'  talk  that  Jules  has  been  with  them  in  Venice  (e.g.  p.  181,  U.  36-44). 
It  is  evident  also  that  he  has  lived  some  time  in  Asolo,  for  Pippa  knows 
where  his  house  stands  and  knows  of  his  marriage  to-day. 

1  The  work  specified  (p.  182,  11.  19-21)  is  a  statue  of  Tydeus,  one  of  the 
heroes  who,  according  to  Greek  legend,  lost  their  lives  in  the  expedition  of 
the  "Seven  against  Thebes."  yEschylus  used  the  legend  for  the  materials 
of  a  tragedy  which  was  first  played  in  467  B.C.,  at  Athens. 

'The  wedding,  according  to  Roman  Catholic  custom,  would  naturally 
be  in  church.  Pippa  (Introduction,  p.  176, 11.  19,  20)  understands  it  is  to  be 
in  the  church  at  Possagno  (cf.  note  5  on  the  preceding  page). 

»  P.  184, 1.  71-p.  185, 1.  45. 

<P.  184,  11.  11-13,  38-40.  The  other  details  above  are  all  from  the 
interlude. 


PIPPA   PASSES  245 

trick  away,  anB  even  contains  at  the  end  the  name  of 
Lutwyche,  his  chief  tormentor.  This  group  of  students 
have  come  up  from  Venice  and  are  now  gathered  outside 
Jules'  house  to  see  the  explosion  and  to  enjoy  his  chagrin 
and  humiliation.  * 

'-■  As  the  scene  opens,  Jules  and  Phene  enter  the  house/ 
returning  from  the  wedding.  Jules  in  all  sincerity  pours 
out  his  expressions  of  love  upon  her  and  wonders  why  she 
does  not  speak.  At  last  she  answers,  slowly  and  with 
difficulty,  for  it  has  become  a  serious  affair  with  her ;  she 
really  loves  Jules,  :^d  pnally,  explaining  how  she  came 
by  it,  she  gives  this  speech  which  they  have  made  her  learn 
by  heart.  The  situation  is  really  tragic.  Shall  Jules  throw 
Phene  over  ?  Shall  he  kill  Lutwyche  and  have  revenge  ? 
Just  at  that  moment,  Pippa  passes  singing 

"Give  her  but  a  least  excuse  to  love  me!" 

"Is  she  wrongedPjTfnXQithe  rescue  of  her  honour, 

My  heart!"       ;  YT;Hr 

with  a  refrain  bringing  to  memory  the  good  Queen  Caterina 
CornarQ^I  It  is  eApugh.  Jules  looks  at  Phene  whose  true 
love  for  him  ^  has  redeemed  her  from  her  past  life : 

'111  no  J;=tILQok  at.the  woman  here  with  the  new  soul. 

K,'5  ?lfi  /;;■•;;*:■  (''         TMs  ncw  soulls  mine ! "  ^ 

And  he  will  not  take  revenge  on  the  students,  but  will  take 
Phene,  his  own  true  wife,  and  they  will  go  away  together  to 

y^O  gMs"3ome  unsuspected  isle  in  the  far  seas,"*-^^  .ui&mu:^r, ,, 

and  *' begin  Art  afresh.'' *■'''    • 

1  Shown  very  simply  and  beautifully  in  her  words  (p.  184,  11.  6-70)  as 
she  dreads  to  begin  the  speech  she  has  been  compelled  to  learn. 

2  P.  186,  u.  16, 28.  M  ,««!  -•;  ' 

'P.  186, 11.  48  and  54;  cf.l.  ss;  see  also  11.  43,  44-  '    ii  >;  .     ; 

*  P.  186,  U.  45,  46.     Cf.  p.  192,  U.  9-44. 


246  BROWNING  STUDIES 

c.  In  Scene  III,  Evening,  we  find  Luigi  and  his 
mother  talking  together  in  the  Turret^  on  the  hill 
above  the  town.  Luigi  is  filled  with  a  great  purpose 
to  kill  the  Austrian  tyrant  who  oppresses  the  Italians. 
He  is  for  Italy  and  freedom.  His  mother  pleads  with 
him  not  to  do  the  desperate  thing.  She  urges  the 
foolishness  of  the  plan.  That  does  not  move  him. 
She  urges  the  danger  to  himself.  He  does  not  care 
for  himself.  He  is  going  this  very  evening.^  He  does 
not  expect  to  escape : 

"The  dying  is  best  part  qf  it." ' 

He  has  sweet  memories  of  the  joy  of  life  ^  and  the  beauty  of 
God^s  world.  As  these  memories  come  thronging  upon 
him,  he  names  with  zest  so  many  beautiful  things,^ 
ending  with 

"May's  warm  slow  yellow  moonlit  summer  nights  — 
Gone  are  they,  but  I  have  them  in  my  soul!" 

But  such  memories  do  not  shake  his  purpose.  Nothing 
his  mother  can  suggest  as  to  the  impossibiHty  of  his  reach- 
ing the  Emperor  is  of  any  avail.  The  references  to  her  love 
for  her  son  and  his  love  for  her  seem  to  be  lost  on  him. 
She  seems  unable  even  to  pursuade  him  to  delay  his  going 
until  morning.     But  when  she  speaks  of  Chiara,  evidently 

*  "The  castle,  a  quadrangular  building  with  a  high  tower,  is  an  interesting 
monument  of  the  thirteenth  century."  —  Berdoe,  Browning  Cyclopcedia, 
ed.  191 2,  p.  50,  in  art.  Asolo.  By  "the  Turret"  Browning  evidently 
means  this  tower,  not  the  whole  castle. 

2P.  188,11.  24,  25;  cf.  p.  189, 11.  33,  34. 

3  P.  188,  1.  34;  see  11.  33-36  and  11.  13-24. 

^  P.  188,  U.  37-41. 

^  P.  188, 11.  42-52.  See  the  same  appreciation  of  the  beauty  of  the  world 
shown  on  p.  189, 11.  26-28,  42-44. 


PIPPA  PASSES  247 

his  sweetheart/  and  of  what  she  will  be  doing  next  June,  he 
answers : 

"True,  mother.    Well  for  those  who  live  through  June!" * 

(but  he  doesn't  expect  to  live).    And  presently  he  adds : 

"Yes,  Chiara  wiU  be  here." ' 

And  when  his  mother  insists  that  it  was  he  himself  who 
appointed  next  June  for  Chiara's  coming,  and  he  thinks  of 
what  they  planned  to  do  together  in  June,^  his  great  self- 
sacrificing  purpose  begins  to  fade.  But,  at  that  moment, 
Pippa  passes  singing  of  an  ideal  king  who  lived  long  ago, 

"In  the  morning  of  the  world." 

And  the  realization  of  the  contrast  between  the  king  de- 
scribed in  that  song  and  the  king  whose  foot  is  on  his 
country's  neck  nerves  Luigi  to  the  dread  duty : 

"  'Tis  God's  voice  calls :  how  could  I  stay  ?    Farewell ! "  * 

*  The  mother's  remark  about  Chiara  (p.  189, 11.  48,  49),  that 
"  She  must  be  grown  —  with  her  blue  eyes  upturned 
As  if  life  were  one  long  and  sweet  surprise," 

does  not  argue  against  her  being  Luigi 's  sweetheart.  The  fact  is,  of  course, 
that  young  people  fall  in  love  much  younger  in  Italy,  and  marry  much 
younger,  than  in  northern  countries.  Luigi  himseK  is  only  fifteen  (p.  188, 
1.  35).  He  hasn't  seen  Chiara  for  some  time,  and  it  must  be  she  has  grown 
and  changed.  The  way  his  mother  focuses  his  mind  on  Chiara  (p.  189, 11. 39, 
40,  45,  46,  48-50)  and  the  way  this  affects  him  —  here  is  proof  enough  as 
to  what  Chiara  was  to  him. 

2  P.  189,1.41. 

3  P.  189,1.45. 

*The  thing  specified  (p.  189, 11.  50,  51)  is: 

"We  were  to  see  together 
The  Titian  at  Treviso," 

i.e.  to  see  Titian's  painting  of  the  Annunciation  which  is  in  the  cathedral 
at  Treviso,  capital  of  the  province  in  which  Asolo  is  situated. 
BR  190,1.35. 


248  BROWNING  STUDIES 

Whatever  you  may  think  of  killing  a  tyrannical  ruler,  you 
appreciate  Luigi's  devotion  and  self-sacrifice  in  undertaking 
what  he  thought  was  his  duty  for  the  sake  of  his  country. 

d.  In  Scene  IV,  Night,  we  see  the  Monsignor  ^  dismissing 
his  attendants,  but  requiring  the  Superintendent^  of  his 
brother's  property  to  stay  for  private  Conference.^  From 
this  conversation  we  learn  that  the  Monsignor  is  the 
youngest  and  sole  survivor  of  three  brothers,  ^  —  of  a  family 
guilty,  for  generations,  of  outrageous  wickedness.^  The 
eldest  brother  died  fourteen  years  ago,  and  the  second  has 
recently  died.®  Since  the  death  of  the  eldest  brother,  this 
Intendant^  has  had  charge  of  his  estate.^  In  the  con- 
versation, it  turns  out  that  Pippa  is  really  the  child  of  the 
Monsignor's  elder  brother.^  The  child  would  have  in* 
herited  her  father's  estates,  but  the  second  brother  engaged 

1  Monsignor  is  an  honorary  title  conferred  by  the  Pope,  giving  its  bearer 
special  dignity,  and  special  privileges  at  the  papal  court.  Those  given  the 
title  are  usually  high  ecclesiastics.  In  the  present  instance,  the  Monsignor, 
apart  from  the  title,  is  a  bishop  (see  e.g.  p,  192, 11.  95,  96;  p.  193, 11.  58,  59; 
cf.  stage  direction,  p.  190,  between  11,  35  and  36). 

2  The  word  Intendant  which  Browning  uses  means  practically  the  same 
as  the  more  familiar  word  Superintendent. 

,3  P.  191,  stage  direction  at  beginning  of  Sc,|,|y^j^.  but  .'especially 
11. 67-71.  ,'         ■  /'■ 

^P.  192,  11.  88-91.  .  -f,. 

^  P.  192, 11.  82-88.  This  one  brother  who  has  taken  orders  in  the  Church 
has  tried  to  escape  becoming  like  the  other  members  of  the  family  (11.  91-97). 
He  has  a  conscience  about  what  the  rest  of  them  have  done  (U.  97-101," 
121-125). 

8  P.  191, 11.  85-90;  p.  193, 1.  22. 

'  Whose  name  is  really  Maffeo  (p.  192,  11.  70-72)  alias  Stefani  (p,  191, 
11.  71-74). 

8  P.  191,  11.  75-77,  11.  85-90;  and  woven  into  most  of  the  conversation 
that  follows. 

"P.  193,  11.  16-22,  71-76,  87-89.  Pippa  did  not  know  anything  about 
her  parents,  and  in  her  room  that  very  morning  was  wondering  what  they 
were  like  (p.  176, 11.  66  67^). 


PIPPA  PASSES  ^49 

this  Intendant  to  murder  her.^    She  has  not  been  murdered, 

but  he  has  let  her  live  in  order  that  he  might  extort  what  he 

wanted  from  the  family.^    He  now  confesses  that  she  is 

alive,  but  he  will  make  away  with  her,  if  the  Monsignor 

will  allow  him  to  escape ;  ^  for  the  Monsignor  is  for  bringing 

him  to  justice.     The  Intendant  explains  that  he  has  a  plot 

better  than  killing  Pippa:    i.e.  she  will  be  brought  into 

Bluphocks'  hands,  seduced  and  carried  to  Rome,  and  be 

as  good  as  dead.^    He  asks  the  Monsignor  to  assent  to  the 

plot,  —  hardly  even  to  assent,  simply  to  tolerate  it.    The 

Monsignor  has  an  eye  on  his  brother's  property,^  which 

would  by  right  come  to  Pippa.    He  is  tempted,  wavers,^  — 

and  her  fate^i^  m  tb.9,Ma|ii,9&,,  ^  Just  t|xen  s^ejierself  passes, 

singing  .„  v.v.  .v,.  '.,.....  .a;  ^.-  ...    ;   /.,■  'Ar, 

.^^^^"  Overhead  the  tree-tops  meet," -^ 

an  exquisite  song  of  childhood's  simplicity,  ending  abruptly 

with  the  words  i,  <<  ;i.i  im.^  imh 

"Suddenly  God  took  me." 

J|;  is  enough.    The  Monsignor  calls  to  his  attendants : 

X      "My  people  —  one  and  all  —  all  —  within  there!    Gag  this 
^villain  —  tie  him  hand  and  foot!    He  dares  ...  I  know  not 

half    he    dares  —  but    remove    him  —  quick!    Miserere    met, 

Dominel    Quick,  I  say! "  ^ 

1  P.  193, 11.  i6-22,  40,  41.  Pippa  was  an  infant  at  the  time,  and  that  was 
about  fourteen  years  ago.     She  is,  therefore,  fourteen  or  fifteen  now. 

2  i.e.  they  suppose  Pippa  dead ;  but  when  the  Intendant  gets  in  a  tight 
place,  he  can  produce  her  and  make  them  come  to  terms,  he  thinks.  Notice 
what  he  says,  p.  193, 11.  89-92.  u-j  ;     _>  .  '-mj: a  jH  ilia  il-. 

3  P.  193,  U.  42  sqq.,  especially  11. 47-49,  7i'-76,  83-87,  ^>  ,?,•.    If  vU  .' 

^  P.  193, 11.  69  sqq.,  especially  11.  76-83,  92-97.  Pippa  will  not  last  more 
than  three  years  at  the  life  into  which  she  will  be  brought  in  Rome  (11.  77,  78). 

5  But  it  is  plain  from  p.  192,  11.  97-101,  and  p.  193,  11.  i4-33)  that  the 
Monsignor  wants  the  property,  not  for  himself,  but  for  the  Church. 

*  The  Intendant  notices  this  in  the  Monsignor's  face  already  as  early  as 
p.  193,  11.  83  and  84. 

'P.  193,  1.  114-p.  194,  1.  4.    Every  phrase  in  the  speech  is  significant. 


250  BROWNING  STUDIES 

3.  In  the  Epilogue,  we  see  Pippa  again  in  her  room,  tired 
from  her  day,  somewhat  dissatisfied,  and  wondering  how 
near  she  might  ever  come  to  touching  those  great  people 
she  has  been  thinking  of  so  much  since  morning,  —  as,  for 
instance,  perhaps  the  silk  she  winds  to-morrow  may  be  used 

to 

"bind 

And  border  Ottima's  cloak's  hem."  ^ 

And  Pippa  never  knows  that  she  has  entered  into  their 
souls'  destinies  this  day.  As  she  lies  down,  the  morning's 
hymn  is  running  in  her  head : 

"God  bless  me!    I  can  pray  no  more  to-night. 
No  doubt,  some  way  or  other,  hymns  say  right. 
All  service  ranks  the  same  with  God  — 
With  Godj  whose  puppets,  best  and  worst, 
Are  we:  there  is  no  last  nor  first."  ^ 

And  she  falls  asleep.^ 

The  Monsignor's  agitation  and  his  eagerness  to  have  the  Intendant  gagged 
and  removed  show  how  sorely  he  has  been  tempted.  The  words  "Miserere 
met,  Domine,"  (Ps.  51:  i,  — in  the  Vulgate  Ps.  50  :  i)  —  "Have  mercy 
upon  me,  O  Lord"  —  show  the  Monsignor's  sense  of  guilt,  his  realization  of 
how  near  he  came  to  consenting  to  the  plot.  Pippa  came  by  barely  in  time. 
^  P.  195, 11.  2-10.    The  words  quoted  are  from  11. 9  and  10. 

2  P.  I9S,  11.  14-18. 

3  The  more  closely  one  reads  Pippa  Passes  the  more  remarkable  will  its 
construction  appear.  Notice  how  the  strands  which  were  started  in  the 
Introduction  and  woven  in  through  the  Scenes  have  their  ends  all  caught 
up  in  the  Epilogue  (especially  that  part  of  it  p.  194,  11.  45  sqq.).  So  also 
with  strands  started  later :  Jules'  plans  (end  of  Sc.  II,  p.  186,  11.  42  sqq., 
especially  11.  45,  46)  caught  up  in  the  Monsignor's  conversation  (Sc. 
IV,  p.  192, 11.  9-44) ;  end  of  Interlude  III  and  end  of  Sc.  IV  caught  up  in  the 
Epilogue  (p.  194, 11.  11-44).  There  is  much  of  such  interlacing.  There  are 
no  loose  ends  left. 


PIPPA  PASSES  251 

V.  Conclusion 

There  is  no  need  that  I  should  speak  of  the  profound 
truth  which  lies  in  these  simple  scenes.  Pippa,  the  humble 
toiler  in  the  silk  mills,  by  her  good  cheer  and  wholesomeness 
and  faith,  was  the  decisive  factor  in  destinies  of  which  she 
was  altogether  ignorant.^  So  also  no  one  of  us  can  tell  how 
far  the  influence  of  his  life  unconsciously  reaches,  but  it 
is  further  than  we  think.  To  live  cheerfully,  nobly,  cour- 
ageously, not  only  for  our  own  sake  but  for  the  sake  of 
others,  —  this  is  the  splendid  privilege  of  every  man  and 
woman.2 

1  As  to  the  reasonableness  of  Pippa's  passing  near  so  much  that  is  tragic 
and  bloody  without  knowing  it,  it  need  simply  be  answered  that  any  of  us, 
even  in  a  small  city,  frequently  pass  within  a  few  feet  of  plot,  murder,  and 
other  tragic  situations,  and  know  nothing  about  their  being  there. 

Those  who  do  not  understand  how  it  happens  that  Pippa  passes  on  the 
edge  of  each  scene  have  failed  to  observe  the  fact  that  Browning,  in  the 
Introduction,  has  provided  for  just  that.  He  has  given  Pippa's  plan  for  the 
day,  and  she  will,  at  different  hours,  naturally  haunt  the  vicinity  where  the 
people  are  hkely  to  be  in  whose  place  she  is  to  imagine  herself  at  that  time. 
The  surroundings  will  help  her  imagination.  Of  course,  having  her  song 
come  in  each  time  at  the  critical  moment  is  a  matter  that  can  be  adjusted 
in  Literature,  not  in  real  life. 

2  It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  add,  what  so  many  discussions  of  Pippa 
Passes  put  in  a  prominent  place,  that  Pippa  is  not  actually  a  girl  who  sang 
in  Asolo  on  a  New  Year's  day,  and  that  the  events  described  in  these  scenes 
are  not  historical  facts.  It  never  occurred  to  me  that  any  reader  of  the 
poem  would  suppose  we  have  anything  here  but  the  product  of  Browning's 
imagination  mortised  into  a  historical  situation,  until  I  noticed  what  pains 
are  taken  by  others  to  protest  that  the  poem  is  not  history. 


bnuoknq  odJ  to  >Uo<|r:  i)liJOf{^  J  JiiiiJ  b-yja  on  di  ix 

Oik  fbi      A  BLOT  IN  THE  'SCUTCHEON 

This  drama  was  published  in  1843.  It  was  No.  5  in 
that  series  of  pamphlets  known  as  Bells  and  Pomegranates. 
Browning  was  31  years  old  when  it  was  published.      ,,,,,,,,, 

I.  The  Title  '"'"''"'' 

I.  The  word  'scutcheon  (written'' 'd,feo  without  the 
apostrophe)  is  the  same  as  escutcheon,^  and  the  two  forms 
have,  for  a  long  time,  held  their  places  side  by  side  in  the 
language.  As  used  in  heraldry,  an  escutcheon  is  the 
surface,  on  a  shield  or  elsewhere,  on  which  are  blazoned 
or  depicted  a  definite  part  of  the  armorial  bearings  of  a 
person,  family,  or  city.  The  space  within  the  outline  of 
the  escutcheon  is  called  the  field,  and  is  occupied  by  the 
designs  and  colors  which  distinguish  the  bearer,  —  except 
the  crest,  motto,  supporters,  and  some  other  details,  which 
are  outside  the  escutcheon.  Anyone  recalling  pictures 
representing  the  arms  of  various  persons  or  families  will 
recognize  the  area  to  which  the  word  escutcheon  technically 
refers.  The  word  is  more  generally  used  in  a  little  broad'e!i^ 
sense,  —  as  when  we  say  a  family  displays  its  'scutcheon 

*  But  some  dictionaries  differentiate  the  uses  of  the  two  forms,  giving 
the  more  general  meaning  to  'scutcheon,  (e.g.  see  escutcheon  and  scutcheon 
in  the  Century  Diet.)  The  dropping  of  the  e  has,  of  course,  come  about  for 
reasons  of  ease  and  readiness  of  speaking. 

252 


A  BLOT  IN  THE  'SCUTCHEON  253 

on  the  stationery  and  on  the  carriage-doors;  the  word 
under  such  circumstances  means  practically  the  coat  of 
arms  by  which  the  family  is  distinguished. 

2.  A  Blot  in  the  ^Scutcheon,  then,  is  a  phrase  meaning  a 
dishonor  to  the  family,  —  a  smirch  on  its  good  name: 
The  'scutcheon  is  symbolic  of  the  family's  pride  and  repu^ 
tation,  and  the  deed  which  disgraces  the  family  is  as  if 
one  had  defaced  with  mud  or  soot  the  arms  blazoned  on 
its  shield.  e  ^^:i;r.vo-ia    jJiUJ    ;.:v'V    oi    jfjo    ra/ihOvj    i 

1.  A  Blot  in  the  ^Scutcheon  is  a  tragedy  in  three  acts. 

2.  It  is  a  pitiful  bloody  thing,  in  which  the  casual  reader 
is  sometimes  seized  with  the  feeling  that  the  tragic  outcome 
is  unnecessary.  I  can  understand  the  fact  that  the  casual 
reader  is  struck  this  way,  but  that  a  thorough  Browning 
student  like  Dr.  Stopford  Brooke  should  feel  that  way 
about  it^  I  caimot  understand.  The  sufficient  answer 
both  to  Dr.  Stopford  Brooke  and  to  the  casual  reader  is 
that  unfortunately  things  do  frequently  turn  out  in  this 
pitiful  tragic  way  in  real  life,  when  a  little  change  at  the 
critical  moment  would  have  changed  the  whole  outcome. 
And  the  real  dramatist's  business  is  to  deal  with  situations 
as  they  really  may  come  to  pass  in  human  life.  So  Shake- 
speare has  brought  Othello  to  a  pitiful  tragic  outcome,  when 
the  slightest  change  at  the  critical  moment  would  have 
made  it  all  otherwise.^  The  simple  fact  is  that  in  real  life 
terrible  consequences  come^  where  a  very  slight,  clla^gQ 


1  Stopford  A.  Brooke,  The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning,  New  Vork,  i9oi, 
pp.  231-235. vino   Jxr  ;;'!fj/i    /;  ;J.:i>     f': 

;  2  Many  may  belike  one  of  my  students  who  would  have  had  Othello  come 
qvit  all  right.  Shakespeare  could  not  bring  Othello  to  a  happy  termination 
without  destroying  it.  If  he  had  tried  to  bring  it  out  so,  there  would  have 
been  no  such  play. 


254 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


would  have  made  it  all  different,  if  we  had  only  known  — 
if  we  had  only  known. 

3.  The  subject  of  A  Blot  in  the  ^Scutcheon  is  Honor. 
And  the  story  is  of  the  sin  which  disgraced  the  name  of 
the  Tresham  family  and  of  the  greater  wrong  that  was 
done  when  the  brother  tried  to  wipe  out  the  disgrace  with 
blood.  It  is  an  eloquent  warning  against  our  judging 
too  hastily  and  taking  vengeance  into  our  own  hands. 
I  pointed  out  to  you  that  Browning's  comprehensive 
mind  must  grapple  with  every  situation  sooner  or  later, 
and  here  he  has  dealt  with  Honor  not  retrieved  by  ven- 
geance but  by  the  suffering  of  the  soul. 

III.  The  Period  and  Place 

1.  The  period  is  the  eighteenth  century,  as  is  indicated 
by  Browning's  ''Time,  17 — "  at  the  top. 

2.  The  place  is  in  England.  You  are  dealing  with  Eng- 
lish trees,  English  scenery,  and  old  proud  English  families, 
together  with  abundant  references  to  events  in  English 
history  with  which  these  families  are  connected. 

IV.  The  Persons 

The  Persons  are : 

1.  Thorold,  Earl  Tresham,  i.e.  Thorold  Tresham,  the 
Earl,  —  usually  called  Lord  Tresham  —  head  now  of  the 
family  —  a  man  mature,  strong,  dignified,  very  proud  of 
the  noble  history  of  the  family  and  its  unspotted  honor, 
eager  to  pass  all  this  without  spot  or  blemish  on  to  his 
successors. 

2.  His  sister,  Mildred  Tresham,  a  girl  only  fourteen 
years  old,^  bereft  of  father  and  mother,  now  under  her 
brother's  guardianship,  —  keen,  beautiful,  willful  but  not 

1  P.  290, 1. 47. 


A  BLOT  IN  THE  ^SCUTCHEON  2$5 

perverse  —  indeed  anticipating  her  brother's  wishes  con- 
cerning her  and  eager  to  do  them.  It  is  very  evident  how 
strong  is  the  love  and  admiration  between  Lord  Tresham 
and  his  sister. 

3.  Henry,  Earl  Mertoun,  i.e.  Henry  Mertoun,  the  Earl, 
—  usually  spoken  of  in  the  play  simply  as  the  Earl,  — 
young  (constantly  his  being  so  young  is  referred  to),  of  a 
family  no  less  noble  and  no  less  honorable  than  the 
Treshams.  He  is  formal  suitor  for  the  hand  of  Mildred 
Tresham. 

4.  Austin  Tresham,  a  soldier.  Lord  Tresham's  younger 
brother,  —  at  home  just  now.    * 

5.  Guendolen  Tresham,  a  member  of  another  branch  of 
the  family,  —  cousin  to  these  Treshams,  —  engaged  to 
Austin.  Such  marriage  of  cousins  is  not  good,  but  still 
frequently  takes  place.  It  is  not  said  whether  they  are 
first  cousins  or  further  removed.  When  Lord  Tresham 
introduces  them  to  Mertoun,  he  says : 

"My  only  brother,  Austin :  he's  the  king's. 
Our  cousin,  Lady  Guendolen  —  betrothed 
To  Austin."  ^ 

6.  Gerard,  the  warrener,  one  of  the  oldest  retainers  of 
Lord  Tresham's  family,  —  a  loyal  simple  man  of  high 
ideals,  and  as  sensitive  on  the  family's  honor  as  Lord 
Tresham  himself. 

7.  Other  retainers  in  conversation. 

V.  The  Centre  of  the  Story 

The  centre  of  the  story  is  one  of  those  things  which 

occur  too  often  even  in  the  highest  circles  and  bring  to  all 

related  to  the  matter  an  endless  chain  of  regret.    These 

ip.  289,  11.  8-10.  The  words  "he's  the  king's"  mean,  of  course,  he's 
in  the  king's  service,  in  the  army. 


256  .^BROWNING  STUDIES 

two  young  people,  Mildred  Tresham  and  Henry  Mertoun, 
have  met  in  the  woods,  have  become  acquainted,  have 
loved  each  other,  —  until  one  day  the  hour  came  when 
they  were  swept  off  their  feet  by  a  flood  of  passion  — 
unable  to  think  calmly,  blind  to  all  consequences,  so  young, 
so  uninstructed  in  self-mastery,  they  have  lost  hold  of 
themselves  and  have  sinned  before  they  hardly  realized 
what  they ;  were  doing.  This  bears  no  relation  to  vice, 
and  is  especially  the  danger  which  besets  the  innocent 
and  those  who  love  most.  It  is  the  rising  of  the  mighty 
tide  of  passion  which  overwhelms  all  reason  for  the  time. 
Against  it  no  one  is  secure  except  in  complete  self-mastery. 
But  of  self-mastery  these  two  young  people  had  not  yet 
enough,  and  neither  pride  nor  fear  could  stand  before  the 
most  elemental  passion  of  human  nature. 

Since  that  time,  Mertoun  has  cHmbed  by  means  of  a 
yew-tree  each  night  to  Mildred's  chamber,  and  then  has 
come  down  the  tree  again.  This  is  not  for  a  repetition  of 
what  they  have  done.  After  that  one  outbreak  of  passion, 
they  have  mastered  themselves.  Their  conversation  given 
and  the  soliloquy  of  each  one  refer  constantly  and  consist- 
jently  to  pne.act  and  only  on^,  the  niemory  of  which  burns 
in  their  thoughts.         ,  .^  ^ 

,  The  main  point  in  any  Explanation  of  Mildred  Tresham's 
conduct  must  be  that  she  loved  Henry  Mertoun.  But 
other  elements  are  to  be,  reckoned  top.  Twice  in  almost 
the  same  words  ^  they  come  out  in  her  pitiful  self-accusing : 

"I  was  so  young,  I  loved  him  so,  I  had 
ri^yiA-^r   p.  .. ; ,; .  No  mother,  God  forgot  me,  and  I  fell."  ;  ; 

Mertoun  blames  himself  bitterly,  spares  himself  no  re- 
proaches as  to  how  much  he  has  wronged  Mildred,  and  will 
do  anything  possible  to  make  reparation. 

*  P.  294, 11. 41, 42 ;  p.  299, 11. 42-44.    Cf.  p.  300, 11. 4-9. 


A  BLOT  IN  THE  'SCUTCHEON  257 

There  is  the  centre  of  the  story^  —  the  sin,  with   ^^nifuiui 
"The  love,  the  Shairie,  and  the  despair.'*  *  "'^  ^^^ '  ' ' 

And  Mertoun  has  resolved  on  the  right  move,  the  honor- 
able move.  He  will  go  to  Lord  Tresham  and  ask  for 
Mildred's  hand  and  make.her  his  wife.^ . .  .1    .^ji..;,  ;.;./.>  j  . : .i 

VI.  TffiE  Construction  of  the  Tragedy  around  this 

Browning  is  not  a  great  dramatist^'^His^  powef^"  is' W 
using  the  monologue.  But  although  his  dramatic  works 
are  in  some  points  technically  defective,  ihe^  frequently 
handles  his  materials  with  an  original  skill  which  is  ad- 
mirable. I  cannot  help  seeing  that,  around  the  central 
fact  of  which  we  have  just  spoken,  he  has  built  up  this 
drama  with  curious  skiH^tnM  ijiili  mhl  Ih:  i>fi> 

I .  Act  I,  Scene  i,  shows  us  the  interior  of  a  lodge,  per- 
haps the  porter's  lodge,  on  Lord  Tresham's  estate.  The 
servants  are  crowding  the  windows  to  see  Earl  Mertoun 
and  his  train.  For  this  is  the  day  he  comes  to  ask  for 
Lady  Mildred's  hand.  The  conversation  of  the  servants 
is  exceedingly  well  done,  —  the  kind  of  thing  they  would 
be  talking.  The  flavor  of  their  conversation,  the  gibes 
at  one  another,  the  comparing  Mertoun's  followers  with 
those  of  their  own  number  who  go  with  Lord  Tresham  to 
meet  him,  the  comments  on  Mertoun's  young  appearance, 
the  swallowing  down  of  a  lot  of  drinkables  which  Tresham's 
butler  has  given  them  in  view  of  the  festive  occasion,  the 

1  P.  293, 1.  30 ;  cf.  p.  304, 11.  59,  60 :  Mildred's  words  in  each  case.  <    ;     .5 

2  Every  reader  of  this  drama  will  distinctly  observe  that  these  are  young 
people  of  high  mind  and  high  ideals.  Everything  shows  that.  It  is  very 
evident  that  Mertoun's  visits  to  Mildred's  room  are  to  encourage  and  reassure 
her,  because  she  feels  so  overwhelmed  and  he  feels  that  he  is  so  to  blame. 


258  ^BROWNING  STUDIES 

running  on  into  the  house  to  see  what  happens  next  — 
all  this  is  exceedingly  good  and  true  to  life. 

But  there  is  one  retainer,  oldest  of  them  all,  trusted,  a 
favorite  with  Lady  Mildred  and  very  fond  of  her,  —  and 
now  he  is  glum,  indifferent  to  the  arrival  of  Mertoun  and 
his  cavalcade.  Every  effort  to  get  Gerard  interested  in 
the  matter  is  fruitless.  When  offered  "a  half -place"  at  a 
window,  he  stands  back,  sa3dng:  ''Here  is  my  place."  ^ 
When  rallied  with  the  unnecessary  information  that  Earl 
Mertoun  is  coming 

"To  ask  our  master's  sister's  hand," 

he  answers  in  most  non-committal  style,  "What  then?"  ^ 
When  laughed  at  for  this,  he  abruptly  changes  the  subject 
to  a  practical  question  about  inspecting  the  hawks  to- 
morrow.^ He  refuses  to  drink  to  the  occasion."*  In  the 
end,  when  they  tell  him  that  Mertoun  will  come  back  this 
way  (so  Gerard  can  see  him  then),  he  says,  "Then  my 
way's  here,"  and  goes  to  avoid  seeing  Mertoun.^ 

The  new  reader  and  the  audience  are  not  supposed  to 
know  what  the  central  fact  of  the  story  is.  These  actions 
of  Gerard,  therefore,  stimulate  the  curiosity.  This  man 
seems  to  have  something  on  his  mind.  What  ails  him? 
Why  is  he  not  like  the  rest,  full  of  good  cheer  at  Mertoun's 
coming  to  ask  for  Mildred's  hand?  There  must  be  some 
mystery  here.  The  normal  human  being  has  curiosity 
instantly  piqued  at  this. 

2.  Scene  11  heightens  this  curiosity  in  the  reader's 
mind.  We  see  the  interior  of  the  great  drawing-room  in 
Lord  Tresham's  house.  Lord  Tresham,  Mertoun,  Austin 
Tresham,  and  Guendolen  are  there. 

1  P.  287,  U.  5-8. 
«  P.  287, 11.  8-14.  3  p,  287, 11. 15-29,  especially  11.  27-29. 

«  P.  288,  U.  34-36.  »  P.  288, 11. 37, 38. 


A   BLOT  IN   THE  'SCUTCHEON  259 

Lord  Tresham  receives  Mertoun  very  graciously  and 
makes  a  very  complimentary  speech  to  him.  But  Mertoun 
is  nervous  and  embarrassed,  grows  red,  and  halts  and 
flounders  in  his  answer,  but  finally  manages  to  present 
his  formal  request  to  be  considered  a  suitor  for  Mildred's 
hand.^  Why  this  embarrassment  on  Mertoun's  part? 
Is  he  so  bashful  as  all  that  ? 

Tresham  answers  cordially,  but  assures  him  that 

"  Mildred's  hand  is  hers  to  give 
Or  to  refuse."  ^ 

And  Mertoun  very  eagerly  asks : 

"But  you,  you  grant  my  suit? 
I  have  your  word  if  hers?"  ' 

and  is  thrown  into  immense  confusion  when  Tresham 
asks  him  if  he  has  ever  seen  Mildred.^  Why  is  he  so  con- 
fused in  trying  to  explain  how  he  saw  Mildred  ? 

As  soon  as  Tresham  has  promised  to  be  favorable  to 
Mertoun's  suit  Mertoun  is  anxious  to  go.  Notice  also 
his  evident  sense  of  relief.^  He  is  so  anxious  to  get  out 
that  he  neglects  to  make  any  arrangement  as  to  a  day 
when  Mildred  will  receive  him  and  let  him  present  his 
suit.^  When  he  is  gone,  Austin  and  Guendolen  both 
comment  on  the  fact  that  Mertoun  seemed  much  more 
eager  to  please  Lord  Tresham  than  to  please  Mildred  or 
set  on  foot  any  move  to  win  her.^ 

Now  the  reader's  curiosity  will  not  be  quiet.    This  is 

1  P.  289, 11.  ia-30.    Cf.  also  11. 31-36. 
« p.  289, 11.  36-43. 
» P.  289, 11. 43, 44. 

*  P.  289, 11.  46-56.     Cf.  also  U.  56-63. 
»  P.  290, 11.  2-8. 

•  P.  290, 11.  9-14.    Cf .  also  the  11.  following  these. 
^  P.  290, 11.  22-39,  49-62. 


26o  .  BROWNING  STUDIES 

all  queer.  Why  is  Mertoun  so  embarrassed?  Why  does 
he  stumble  so  in  his  answers  ?  Why  is  he  so  eager  to  please 
Lord  Tresham  ?  Why  is  he  so  confused  when  asked  if  he 
has  ever  seen  Mildred  ?  Why  is  he  so  reheved  when  Lord 
Tresham  is  favorable  to  his  suit?  Why  is  he  so  eager  to 
get  away  ?  Why  is  he  so  careless  about  arranging  to  meet 
Mildred  and  win  her  favor  ?     Surely  there's  a  mystery  here. 

3.  And  the  first  half  of  Scene  iii  added  to  all  this  brings 
the  new  reader's  curiosity  up  to  a  still  higher  pitch.  Guen- 
dolen  has  gone  to  Mildred's  room  to  tell  her  about  the 
interview  and  to  get  her  to  agree  to  receive  Mertoun  to- 
morrow or  the  day  after  to-morrow  ^  and  let  him  present 
himself  to  her  as  suitor.  We  see  Guendolen  and  Mildred 
talking  in  Mildred's  room. 

But  Mildred  is  quite  indifferent  to  Guendolen's  account 
of  the  pedigree  of  Earl  Mertoun  and  shows  no  interest  in 
Guendolen's  description  of  his  appearance.  She  is,  how- 
^ever,  ■  ^^igeriy  interested  in  learning  how  her  brother  re- 
ceived him:  ^  ^  '--^  .lcj  ^'auonulA 
....  ^  "mybrother—  inbiva  aid 
Did  he^ ^,,^^,,,^5^9^^  said  that  he  received  him  well? "..  j  ^^^r . 

I^ilted;  rather  curtly  dismisses  the  jesting  Guendolen, 
but  just  as  Guendolen  is  going  she  laughingly  throws  in 
some  more  information,  and  finds  Mildred  correcting  her 
about  the  color  of  Mertoun's  hair;  and  the  explanation 
which  the  confused  Mildred  makes  is  very  lame.^ 

This,  says  the  new  reader,  is  extraordinary.  Why  is 
Mildred  so  interested  in  how  her  brother  received  Mer- 
toun? Why  is  she  not  interested  in  how  Mertoun  looks? 
Why  is  she  so  confused  when  she  betrays  the  fact  that  she 
knows  the  color  of  his  hair? 

1  As  she  was  asked  to  do  at  the  end  of  Sc.  11,  p.  291, 11.  3-12. 

2  P.  291, 11.  40,  41.  3  p,  291, 1.  69-p.  292, 1.  5. 


A  BLOT  IN  THE  'SCUTCHEON  261 

Thus  from  the  very  beginning  to  past  the  middle  of  the 
third  scene,  there  is  a  constant  heightening  of  the  reader's 
curiosity,  a  constant  sharpening  of  the  reader's  interest. 
I  call  that  good  dramatic  construction. 

4.  And  having  brought  the  interest  to  this  pitch,  the 
method  by  which  the  mystery  is  explained  to  the  reader 
(or  to  the  audience  at  the  play)  is  also  well  chosen  and 
well  handled.  As  soon  as  she  is  left  alone,  Mildred  places 
the  lamp  in  a  purple  pane  in  her  window,  and  presently  a 
figure  wearing  a  slouched  hat  and  wrapped  in  a  mantle 
comes  in  through  the  window.  He  throws  off  cloak  and 
hat,  and  it  is  Earl  Mertoun  himself.  And  in  the  few 
minutes  of  conversation  between  him  and  Mildred,  the 
reader  understands  it  all,  —  the  sin,  the  shame,  the  re- 
morse, his  hope  that  it  will  never  be  known  now  that  he 
has  her  brother's  consent  to  their  marriage,  her  feeling 
that  she  can  never  live  through  it  and  play  the  part  of 
not  knowing  Mertoun  before,  their  agreement  to  have  their 
last  secret  meeting  to-morrow  night,  —  and  he  is  gone 
out  of  the  window  again  and  down  the  yew-tree.  This  is 
the  end  of  Act  I. 

Let  those  who  criticise  Browning's  dramatic  skill  stand 
up  and  tell  how  else  in  a  single  act  so  much  interest  could 
be  stimulated  in  readers  or  audience,  and  the  real  situation 
be  so  clearly  made  known. 

5.  But  what  was  the  trouble  with  Gerard,  the  old  re- 
tainer? Why  was  he  so  glum  in  the  first  scene?  This 
needs  no  answer  when  you  read  Act  11.^ 

It  is  next  morning.    Act  II  shows  Lord  Tresham  hurry- 
ing Gerard  into  the  library  and  locking  the  door,  and  com- 
manding Gerard  to  repeat  "firmly  and  circumstantially" 
what  he  has  just  told  him.    And  old  Gerard,  torn  between 
*  Act  II  contains  but  a  single  scene. 


262  ^BROWNING  STUDIES 

devotion  to  Mildred  and  duty  toward  Lord  Tresham,  un- 
folds the  fact  that  he  has,  for  a  month,  seen  a  man  at  mid- 
night climb  up  the  yew-tree  night  after  night  to  Lady 
Mildred^s  window,  enter  and  stay  an  hour  or  two.^  Lord 
Tresham  cannot  believe  his  ears  and  demands  that  the 
thing  be  told  in  all  its  details.  Gerard's  story  is  perfectly 
straightforward.  The  first  time  he  saw  it,  it  was  by  ac- 
cident. He  was  tracking  a  stag  that  had  broken  the 
fence,  and  just  as  he  passed  here  he  saw  a  man  come  out 
of  Lady  Mildred's  window  and  down  the  tree;  and  it 
was  a  great  moonlight  night  as  "light  as  any  day."  ^ 
Tresham  sees  the  sincerity  of  the  man,  knows  his  loyalty  to 
the  house  and  to  Mildred,  and  knows  that  Gerard  speaks 
the  truth  when  he  says  that  since  he  first  saw  this  he  has 
groaned  as  if  in  a  fiery  net.^  The  whole  conversation  is 
of  the  highest  type  of  appropriate  dialogue.  Gerard, 
now  that  he  has  told  what  he  has  seen,  wishes  he  had  not 
done  it.^  He  answers  a  few  more  questions  and  goes  out, 
leaving  Lord  Tresham  alone. 

Lord  Tresham  can  hardly  realize  that  this  thing  can  be 
possible,  and  is  trying  to  collect  his  thoughts  when  he  is 
interrupted  by  Guendolen's  knocking.  He  asks  her  to 
come  in.^  As  she  enters,  he  hastily  pulls  down  a  book  and 
tries  to  conceal  his  agitation.  He  agrees  that  he  is  not 
well,  and  sends  for  Mildred  on  the  excuse  that  he  has  found 
the  passage  they  were  looking  for  in  an  old  Italian  book.^ 

>  P.  294, 1.  56-p.  295, 1.  17.  Gerard  says  that  it  has  been  "at  least  a 
month,"  that  he  has  seen  it  "twenty  times,"  that  the  man  has  stayed  "an 
hour,  two  hours." 

2  P.  29s,  U.  17-24.  '  P.  29s,  11.  27-31.  4  P.  29s,  11.  32-48. 

^  The  door,  though  closed,  has  remained  unfastened  since  Gerard  went 
out. 

•  P.  296,  U.  24-31.  Cf.  11.  31-35,  and  notice  that  in  1.  33  Guendolen  uses 
the  phrase  "some  blot  i'  the  'scutcheon." 


A  BLOT  IN  THE  'SCUTCHEON  263 

And  presently  Mildred  enters.  The  rest  of  the  Act  is 
brief  and  painful.  At  first  only  Tresham  and  Mildred 
are  there.  He  sees  it  is  of  no  use  to  hedge.  She  tells 
him  to  speak  plainly.  Tresham  accuses  her  pointblank 
of  letting  a  man  enter  her  chamber  window  at  night.  She 
does  not  deny  it,  although  he  begs  her  to  do  so.  And  then 
Tresham  demands  the  man's  name.  This  Mildred  will 
not  tell.  And  when  Tresham  asks  what  she  will  do  about 
the  appointment  made  for  to-morrow  for  Earl  Mertoun 
to  come  and  present  his  suit,  Mildred  answers : 
"I  will  receive  him."  ^ 

At  these  words,  Tresham  in  a  fury  calls  Guendolen  and 
Austin  who  are  outside,  declares  to  them  in  scathing  terms 
the  position  in  which  Mildred  stands  —  a  position  entirely 
inconceivable  to  his  sense  of  honor  —  she  guilty  of  this 
man's  visits  in  her  chamber,  refusing  to  give  his  name, 
yet  ready  to  forsake  him  and  to  deceive  Earl  Mertoun  by 
pretending  to  give  him  her  unstained  womanhood.  Such 
an  accumulation  of  wickednesses  in  the  sister  whom  he 
loved  and  admired  goads  this  man  to  madness.  He  rushes 
out  as  Mildred  faints. 

Guendolen,  as  this  Act  ends,  sees  through  the  tangle 
to  the  fact,  —  realizes  that  the  secret  lover  and  Earl  Mer- 
toun are  the  same  man,  and  hopes  to  reach  Lord  Tresham 
before  he  has  done  anything  desperate.^ 

6.  Such  is  the  situation  throughout  the  day  which 
precedes  the  last  Act.  Stopford  Brooke  is  opposed  to 
such  a  situation,  —  says  it  is  *' horrible,"  "revolting,"  says 
he  has  to  accept  it  "with  wrath,"  says  Browning  ought 
to  have  made  Mildred  tell  Tresham  her  lover's  name, 
says  that  "a  good  dramatist  would  have  arranged"  it 

1  P.  298,  1.  9.  a  p.  299, 1. 70-p.  300, 1. 38. 


264  ^   BROWNING  STUDIES 

*^so  differently."^  It  is  only  fair  to  Stopford  Brooke  to 
answer  bluntly  that  his  criticism  at  this  point  is  puerile. 
That  is  an  ugly  word  and  it  is  used  here  with  great  reluc- 
tance. But  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  using  it,  if  I  am  to 
speak  honestly  of  this  criticism  of  Dr.  Brooke's.  If  Mildred 
had  given  Mertoun*s  name  at  this  point,  there  would  have 
been  no  play  —  nothing  to  make  a  drama  out  of.  The 
whole  matter  would  have  been  patched  up  and  the  two 
would  have  been  married,  —  and  no  drama .^  It  is  in 
having  created  precisely  this  situation  that  the  greatness 
of  Browning's  dramatic  skill  lies.  Such  things  do  happen 
in  real  life.  Mildred  is  a  Tresham,  a  chip  of  the  same 
block  from  which  her  brother  comes.  She  is  not  going  to 
give  her  lover's  name  at  command  of  her  brother.  More- 
over, she  is  faithful  to  Henry  Mertoun  unto  death  and 
she  is  not  going  to  explain  that  he  is  her  clandestine  lover, 
until  she  knows  how  much  harm  it  may  do  him.  This 
drama  is  a  tragedy  of  honor,  and  Mildred  Tresham's  sense 
of  honor  is  no  less  than  her  proud  brother's.  And  she  is 
in  honor  bound  to  her  lover,  Henry  Mertoun,  and  whatever 
the  disgrace  they  may  heap  on  her,  she  cannot  expose  his 
name  to  disgrace  unless  he  wills  it  so. 

I  have  seen  and  heard  Dr.  Stopford  Brooke.  He  is  a 
man  old  enough  and  acquainted  enough  with  the  world 
so  that  such  a  criticism  from  him  is  surprising  and  in- 
congruous, it  is  so  unlike  him.  No  excuse  can  be  made 
for  his  high-school-girl  attitude  toward  this  crisis  in  the 
Blot  in  the  ^Scutcheon. 


*  Stopford  A.  Brooke,  The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning,  New  York,  1902, 
pp.  233,  234. 

2  It  is  like  the  case  in  Hamlet:  the  student,  when  asked  "Why  didn't 
Hamlet  kill  the  king  sooner?"  answered  right,  "Why,  if  he  had  killed  the 
king,  there  wouldn't  have  been  any  play." 


A  BLOT  IN  THE  'SCUTCHEON  265 

7.  Then  comes  the  third  Act  —  brief  and  pitiful  in  the 
extreme. 

We  see  the  end  of  the  Yew-tree  Avenue  under  Mildred's 
window.  Lord  Tresham  has  walked  for  hours  trying  to 
subdue  the  storm  in  him,  but  always  his  feet  come  back 
to  this  one  spot.  And  as  he  approaches  now,  it  is  near 
midnight.    As  the  clock  strikes,  he  steps  behind  a  tree. 

And  Mertoun  comes,  in  his  cloak  and  slouched  hat,  to 
make  his  last  secret  visit  to  Mildred;  for  to-morrow  he 
asks  her  openly  to  be  his  wife.  Up  in  the  window  of 
Mildred's  room,  the  lamp  is  lifted  to  the  purple  pane, 
and  Mertoun  lays  his  hand  on  the  yew-tree  to  ascend. 
But  Tresham's  hand  is  on  his  arm  and  brings  him  out  of 
the  shadow  into  the  moonlight,  and  Tresham  demands 
his  name.  But  Mertoun,  recognizing  that  it  is  Tresham, 
begs  him  not  to  compel  him  to  make  himself  known,  —  for 
Tresham's  own  sake.    But  there  is  no  avoiding  it : 

"  I  read  your  white  inexorable  face. 
Know  me,  Lord  Tresham  ! "  ^ 

And  he  throws  off  cloak  and  hat. 

Be  sure  that  this  is  the  last  drop  of  bitterness  to  Thorold 
Tresham,  man  of  honor.  All  day  he  has  tried  to  adjust 
himself  to  a  realization  that  his  sister  could  seem  pure 
and  good  and  be  at  the  same  time  a  wanton  and  deceiver. 
And  now  to  have  it  suddenly  appear  that  Mertoun  too 
has  been  playing  a  part,  that  he  too  is  without  honor  and 
without  shame  — !  Tresham  cannot  think.  He  cannot 
see  how  it  all  is  and  how  he  may  be  misinterpreting  the 
motives  of  both.  He  will  not  let  Mertoun  tell  him,  although 
the  boy  begs  him  to  let  him  speak  for  Mildred's  sake. 
Tresham  demands  that  Mertoun  fight.    And  reluctantly, 

1  P.  301, 11. 40, 41. 


266  DROWNING  STUDIES 

knowing  he  must  not  kill  Mildred's  brother,  Mertoun 
draws.  He  makes  a  few  passes,  and  falls  mortally  wounded. 
Tresham  knows  the  young  man  did  not  defend  himself : 

"You  made  no  effort  to  resist  me."  ^ 
And  a  few  minutes  later  he  explains : 

"There  was  no  fight  at  all. 
He  let  me  slaughter  him."  ^ 

The  sudden  revulsion  of  feeling,  when  Mertoun  is  down 
in  his  blood,  is  very  natural  in  one  so  high-strung  as  Lord 
Tresham.  He  is  willing  now  to  listen,  as  the  dying  boy 
explains  to  him  how  it  all  came,  —  the  love,  the  sin,  the 
hope  to  make  it  right  by  marriage  —  to  keep  it  unknown 
—  to  leave  no  blot  on  the  proud  'scutcheon  of  the  Tresham 
family.     And  Tresham  sees  it  all. 

Mertoun's  last  thoughts  are  of  Mildred : 

"Ah,  Mildred !    What  will  Mildred  do ? 
Tresham,  her  life  is  bound  up  in  the  life 
That's  bleeding  fast  away."  ^ 

And  leaving  messages  for  her,  he  says : 

"Say,  loving  her 
Lowers  me  down  the  bloody  slope  to  death 
With  memories."  ^ 

And  as  they  start  to  lift  the  dying  boy,  the  moving  his 
body  turns  his  face  away  from  Mildred's  window,  but  he 
turns  his  face  back  that  way,  and  dies  with  his  eyes  upon 
the  lamp  in  the  purple  window-pane.^ 

1  P.  301, 1.  69.  2  p_  303^  11  J4^  j^^  3  p.  302,  II.  41-43. 

*  P.  302,  11.  56-58.  The  figure  is  this :  the  merhories  are  Hke  ropes  or 
straps  by  which  Mertoun  is  lowered  "down  the  bloody  slope  to  death," 
i.e.  he  does  not  go  down  quickly  and  violently,  but  his  love  for  Mildred, 
holding  on  to  him  by  these  memories,  lowers  him  gently  down  to  death. 

»  P.  301,  stage  direction  after  1. 11 ;  p.  302,  stage  direction  in  1.  41 ;  p.  303, 
11.  2-4,  with  the  included  stage  direction. 


A  BLOT  IN  THE  'SCUTCHEON  267 

8.  The  last  scene  of  this  third  Act  shows  us  the  interior 
of  Mildred's  room.  And  Lord  Tresham  comes  to  tell 
her  what  has  come  to  pass.  He  would  not  let  anyone 
come  but  himself ;  ^  for  the  last  messages  were  given  to 
him  to  bring,  not  to  any  of  the  others  who  had  come  there 
under  the  yews  when  he  called.  And  now  he  comes.  But 
Mildred  sees  what  has  happened,  —  sees  it  by  his  face  and 
his  empty  scabbard.^  (He  has  dropped  his  sword.)  She 
will  not  let  him  tell  her  how  he  killed  Henry  Mertoun,^ 
whose  blood  was  "on  fire  with  youth  and  hope  and  love" 
of  her.^    And  this  proud  Lord  Tresham  confesses : 

"I 

This  morning  took  an  office  not  my  own,"  ^ 

confesses  how,  as  the  boy  lay  bleeding  to  death  there  a 
few  minutes  ago,  with  "the  moon  on  his  flushed  cheek," 
the  whole  matter  was  clear : 

"I  gathered  all 
The  story  ere  he  told  it :  I  saw  through 
The  troubled  surface  of  his  crime  and  yours 
A  depth  of  purity  immovable."  ^ 

And  Mildred  forgives  her  brother  all  and  blesses  him  from 
her  "soul  of  souls,"  ^  and  dies  of  anguish  of  spirit,  with 
her  arms  about  her  brother's  neck.*  And  Tresham  has 
drank  down  a  poison  just  as  he  came  to  Mildred's  room,^ 

1  P.  303, 11.  6-10. 

2  p.  304,  11.  3-6,  26-28  (especially  the  stage  direction). 
»  P.  304,  U.  32-37. 

*P.  304, 11.  52,53. 

5  P.  304,  11.  17,  18.  By  the  "office  not  my  own,"  he  means  the  office  of 
judge  and  avenger.     See  p.  305,  1.  53. 

«P.  304, 11.67-71. 

'  P.  304,  U.  23-31 ;  p.  305,  U.  5-17. 

8  P.  305, 11.  10  (stage  direction),  22-24,  29,  30. 

» P.  305, 11.  32-36,  especially  1. 34.  Cf.  p.  304, 11. 14,  39, 40;  p.  305, 11.  3, 
24-29,  41, 


268  ^BROWNING  STUDIES 

commends  the  estate  and  title  and  honor  to  Austin  and 
Guendolen  ^  who  have  come  in,  —  the  'scutcheon  — 

"  You  hold  our  'scutcheon  up  — 
Austin,  no  blot  on  it ! "  * 

and  dies  with  the  words 

"  Vengeance  is  God's,  not  man's.    Remember  me  !"* 

VII.  Conclusion 

Such  is  the  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon.  It  seems  to  me  that 
Browning  has  developed  the  story  with  a  high  degree  of 
reasonableness,  and  has  shown  genuine  skill  in  leading 
up  to  a  tragic  crisis  and  in  handling  the  situation  when  the 
crisis  has  come. 

If  it  be  urged  that  too  many  die  at  the  end  of  this  play, 
it  should  be  answered  that  Shakespeare,  the  prince  of 
dramatists,  has  more  die  at  the  end  of  Hamlet,  Lear,  and 
many  another  tragedy.  If  it  be  argued  that  Mildred's 
dying  from  grief  and  anguish  is  too  extreme,  it  need  simply 
be  answered  that  such  cases  are  common  in  real  life,  — 
that  physicians  are  frequently  afraid  women  will  die  of 
sudden  grief  and  that  we  have  known  of  their  doing  it. 
If  you  object  to  Tresham's  suicide,  it  need  only  be  added 
that  many  a  noble-souled  man  has  committed  suicide  under 
circumstances  less  extreme  than  these.  Tresham's  suicide 
by  poison  does  not  seem  artistic,  —  neither  does  Luria's 
death  by  similar  means.  The  method  does  not  compare 
well  with  Othello's  use  of  his  dagger.  Why  does  Browning 
bring  Tresham  and  Luria  to  their  end  by  so  inglorious  a 
thing  as  poison?  Because  Browning  is  bound  to  be  true 
to  life.    And  the  fact  is  that  so  many  men,  when  things  get 

1  P.  30s,  U.  43-46.  2  P.  30s,  11. 46, 47.  ^  P.  30s,  1.  SZ' 


A  BLOT  IN  THE  'SCUTCHEON  269 

too  thick,  do  find  their  release  by  taking  poison.    And  so 
Browning  puts  it  that  way  here. 

Indeed,  the  humanness  of  the  Blot  in  the  ^Scutcheon  is 
one  of  its  outstanding  characteristics.  It  is  so  probable 
that  it  grips  us.  And  the  feeling  in  it  is  sharp  —  too  sharp, 
some  may  think.  It  is  so  sharp  that  it  hurts.  But  the 
fact  that  it  does  stab  so  shows  how  well  Browning  has 
succeeded  in  tragic  writing. 


XIII 

LURIA 

Pp.  379-401 

No.  8,  the  last  of  that  series  of  pamphlets  entitled  Bells 
and  Pomegranates,  was  published  in  1846,  when  Browning 
was  34  years  old.  It  contained  two  dramatic  pieces  — 
Luria  and  A  Soul's  Tragedy,  We  study  Luria  this  morn- 
ing, A  Sours  Tragedy  Saturday  morning. 

Luria,  then,  for  our  study  this  morning. 

I.  The  Dedication 

It  is  dedicated  to  Walter  Savage  Landor  (born  1775, 
died  1864).    The  words 

"I  dedicate  this  last  attempt  for  the  present  at  dramatic  poetry"  ^ 

indicate  that  Luria  was  written  subsequent  to  A  SouVs 
Tragedy.  Luria  stood  first,  however,  in  the  pamphlet 
in  which  the  two  were  published,  and  stands  before  the 
other  drama  in  Browning's  collected  works. 

II.  The  Nature  of  the  Piece 

1.  Luria  is  a  tragedy  in  five  acts,  but  each  act  contains 
only  a  single  scene. 

2.  The  action  occupies  only  one  day.  It  is  morning 
in  Act  I,  noon  in  Act  II,  afternoon  in  Act  III,  evening  in 
Act  rV,  and  night  in  Act  V. 

'  P.  379,  first  line  of  the  dedication. 
270 


LURIA  271 

3.  The  action  all  occurs  in  one  place,  viz.  in  Luna's 
camp  between  Florence  and  Pisa,  —  and,  indeed,  as  far 
as  any  indication  goes,  all  of  it  in  the  same  tent  in  that 
camp. 

4.  Surely  those  who  are  anxious  to  see  the  dramatic 
unities  observed  will  find  it  in  this  play. 

III.  The  Historical  Situation 

1.  Browning  has  marked  the  piece  "Time,  14 — ."  ^ 

2.  The  tragedy  is  in  fact  set  in  the  war  between  Florence 
and  Pisa  in*  1405- 1406. 

3.  But  we  do  not  find  among  the  commanders  for 
Florence  in  that  war  a  Moorish  general  named  Luria. 
Nor  do  we  find  any  of  the  names  which  Browning  has  given 
to  the  other  characters  in  his  drama.  The  fact  simply  is 
that  Browning  has  created  the  great  character  of  Luria 
and  has  consistently  surrounded  him  with  imaginary 
persons,  and  has  set  them  in  a  war  whose  events  are  his- 
torical. It  is,  however,  a  fact  that  in  1406  Pisa's  fortunes 
were  not  decided  by  a  battle,  as  in  Browning's  drama,  but 
by  Pisa's  surrender  after  a  long  siege.  But  there  seems 
to  be  no  "14 — "  in  which  Browning's  drama  fits  at  all, 
except  1406. 

4.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  Floren- 
tine forces  in  the  early  part  of  the  war  of  1405- 1406  was 
not  a  Florentine,  but  Count  Bertoldo  Orsini,^  —  the  same 
who  had  been  in  command  of  the  expedition  against  Pisa 
in   1404.     Orsini,   however,   continued  as  commander-in- 

1  At  the  opening,  p.  379. 

'  The  Orsini  were  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  powerful  families  of  Rome, 
and  had  branches  in  other  parts  of  Italy.  Their  feud  with  the  Colonna 
family  is  famous.  In  the  twelfth  to  the  sixteenth  centuries,  many  of  the 
Orsini  became  distinguished  in  the  Church  and  many  in  the  military  pro- 
fession. 


272  BROWNING  STUDIES 

chief  for  bnly  a  few  months.  The  Florentines  were  im- 
patient and  thought  he  was  not  accomplishing  enough, 
and  he  was  replaced  early  in  1406  by  Count  Obizzo  di 
MontegaruUi.^ 

5.  The  wider  setting  of  Luria  is  the  Italy  of  five  hundred 
years  ago,  —  Italy  broken  up  into  separate  states,  usually 
each  with  some  city  as  a  centre,  having  different  forms  of 
government,  independent  of  one  another,  and  frequently 
at  war  with  one  another.  Modern  united  Italy,  of  course, 
dates  from  1870.  And  to  find  an  earlier  united  Italy  — 
united  in  reahty,  not  merely  in  name  —  we  shall  have  to 
go  back  to  the  days  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

6.  There  was  sure  to  be  trouble  between  Florence  and 
Pisa,  —  both  on  the  Arno  —  Florence  among  the  Etruscan 
hills,  with  her  crown  of  commerce  and  literature  and  art 
—  Pisa  fifty  miles  to  the  westward,  six  miles  from  the 
mouth  of  the  river.  Naturally,  in  the  rivalry  of  these  two 
cities,  the  trouble  began  early,  and  there  were  many  things 
which  complicated  and  aggravated  it.  It  could  never  be 
settled  until  Florence  ruled  Pisa.  But  the  Pisans  were  an 
ambitious  people  and  had  a  history  of  which  they  were 
proud.2  They  were  a  people  of  independent  spirit  and 
were  hard  fighters ;  and  not  until  this  memorable  year  of 
1406  was  the  conquest  of  Pisa  accomphshed.  The  Floren- 
tines sent  an  expedition  against  the  Pisans  in  the  early 

*  S.  Ammirato,  Istorie  Florentine,  Florence,  1647,  vol.  II,  pp.  919,  922; 
T.  A.  TroUope,  A  History  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Florence,  London,  1865, 
vol.  II,  p.  328.  Ammirato  (p.  919)  puts  Bertoldo  Orsini  down  as  "  Conte  di 
Soana"  (Count  of  Soana).  The  spelling  of  Count  Obizzo's  name  given 
above  is  after  Trollope.  Ammirato  (p.  922)  spells  it  "Obizo  da  Monte- 
garullo." 

2  In  the  eleventh  century  the  republic  of  Pisa  was  flourishing  and  was 
reckoned  one  of  the  chief  commercial  powers  of  the  Mediterranean. 
Florence's  prosperity  and  power  began  in  the  twelfth  century. 


LURIA  273 

months  of  1404,  but  it  was  turned  back  from  the  gates  of 
Pisa  and  proved  practically  fruitless.  The  war  was  again 
set  on  foot  in  September,  1405,  but  little  was  accomplished 
that  winter.  But  early  in  the  following  spring,"  Pisa  was 
closely  besieged,  and  on  Oct.  9,  1406,  after  the  Pisans  had 
been  reduced  to  extreme  straits,  the  Florentines  took  pos- 
session of  the  city.  It  should  be  added,  however,  that 
although  conquered  by  Florence  in  1406,  Pisa  regained 
her  independence  in  1494,  and  successfully  resisted  Florence 
in  1499,  1504,  and  1505,  and  did  not  finally  submit  till 
1509.  But  from  the  conquest  which  she  suffered  in  1406, 
Pisa  never  really  recovered.^ 

7.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  time  all  over  Europe  to  hire 
soldiers  for  the  wars,  and  a  large  number  of  men  were 
soldiers  of  fortune  and  made  a  good  living  that  way  as 
officers  or  privates,  because  there  was  always  some  war 
needing  men.  It  was  only  natural  that  in  the  South  of 
Europe  many  of  these  soldiers  should  be  Moors  — a  splendid 
race  of  fighters,  hot-blooded,  brave,  capable.  One  such 
has  been  immortalized  —  Othello,  the  Moor  in  the  service 
of  the  republic  of  Venice  ^  —  immortalized  in  one  of  Shake- 
speare's greatest  plays.  It  is  altogether  natural,  then,  for 
Robert  Browning  to  set  another  Moor  here  in  conomand  of 
the  army  of  Florence. 

8.  It  is  known  from  history  that  Florence  in  her  wars 
hired  many  foreign^  captains,  and  also  that  the  govern- 
ment of  Florence  surrounded  such  officers,  while  in  her 
employ,  with  spies  and  regarded  them  with  suspicion,  — 

1  See  T.  A.  Trollope,  A  History  etc.  as  above,  vol.  II,  pp.  337,  338. 

2  Speaking  offhand,  without  taking  up  the  discussion  of  the  relation  of 
Shakespeare's  Othello  to  Giraldi's  novel  and  whether  there  was  such  a  histori- 
cal person  as  Othello. 

3  "Foreign"  used  in  the  sense  of  being  not  Florentines. 


274 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


simply  because,  being  foreigners,  there  was  danger  that 
they  might  take  advantage  of  Florence  to  advance  their 
own  ends.  Such  foreign  ofl&cers  were  frequently  accom- 
panied by  Florentines  appointed  by  the  commonwealth. 
These  were  the  "commissaries"  —  not  in  our  military 
sense  of  officers  having  charge  of  transportation  and  pro- 
visions for  the  troops,  as  in  our  "commissary  department," 
but  in  the  more  general  sense  of  commissioners,  to  represent 
Florence's  interests  and  to  report  on  the  general's  move- 
ments. That  is,  they  were  not  necessarily  soldiers,  but 
civil  officers  representing  the  Signory.^  Ammirato,^  in 
his  history  of  Florence,^  relates  that  when  Orsini,  in  com- 

*  The  men  who  were  actually  Florence's  commissaries  in  the  spring  of 
1406  were  Maso  degli  Albizzi  (head  of  the  powerful  Albizzi  family)  and  Gino 
Capponi.  They  went  down  to  the  neighborhood  of  Pisa  on  Mch.  4th.  In 
Sept.  the  commissaries  in  the  Florentine  camp  were  Gino  Capponi  and 
Bartolemmeo  Corbinelli.  (Trollope,  vol.  II,  pp.  329,  331).  Capponi  was 
made  the  first  Florentine  governor  of  Pisa  (for  eight  months) .  His  history  of 
this  war  is  a  document  of  prime  authority.  It  will  be  found  in  Muratori, 
Rerutn  Ilalicarum  Scriptores,  vol.  XVIII,  Milan,  1731,  cols.  11 27-1 148. 

2  Scipione  Ammirato,  the  Elder,  —  bom  at  Lecce  in  the  kingdom  of  Naples 
in  153 1 ;  was  sent  to  Naples  to  be  educated ;  was  intended  by  his  father  for 
the  legal  profession,  but  chose  rather  to  take  orders  in  the  Church ;  lived 
some  time  in  Venice,  and  then  returned  to  Naples ;  came  to  Florence  in  1569, 
and  was  appointed  by  Grand  Duke  Cosimo  de'  Medici  (Cosimo,  the  Great) 
to  write  the  Florentine  history;  was  made  a  canon  of  the  Cathedral  of 
Florence;  died  in  Florence  1601.  At  his  death,  he  made  his  secretary, 
Christofero  del  Bianco,  his  heir  on  condition  that  del  Bianco  should  adopt 
the  name  of  Ammirato.  Accordingly,  he  is  known  as  Scipione  Ammirato, 
the  Younger.  Several  of  Ammirato's  works  were,  after  his  death,  edited 
by  this  Scipione  Ammirato,  the  Younger. 

'  Ammirato's  Istorie  Florentine  is  in  two  parts  and  brings  the  history  down 
to  1574.  It  was  published  as  follows:  Part  I,  2  vols,  folio,  Florence,  1600; 
Part  II,  I  vol.  folio,  Florence,  1641 ;  Part  I,  with  additions  by  Scipione 
Ammirato,  the  Younger,  reissued,  2  vols,  folio,  Florence,  1647.  The  set 
in  the  Boston  Public  Library  consists  of  Part  I  in  the  two  vols,  of  1647 
(paged  consecutively)  and  Part  II  in  the  vol.  of  1641,  numbered  on  the  back 
as  vol.  III. 


LURIA  275 

mand  of  Florence's  troops,  marched  to  the  gates  of  Pisa 
in  1404,  expecting  to  take  the  city,  —  the  expedition 
which  proved  practically  fruitless,  —  he  was  accompanied 
by  three  commissaries,  whose  names  Ammirato  gives.^ 
Trollope  goes  on  to  give  us  a  sample  of  the  spirit  in  which 
these  commissaries  were  sent : 

"For,  although  we  have  every  confidence  in  the  honour  and 
fidelity  of  our  general,  you  see  it  is  always  well  to  be  on  the  safe 
side.  And  in  the  matter  of  receiving  possession  of  a  city  .  .  . 
we  might  as  well  send  some  of  our  own  people  to  be  on  the  spot."  * 

9.  Furthermore,  it  is  one  of  the  notorious  facts  of  history 
that  Florence,  swayed  by  the  faction  which,  for  the  mo- 
ment, might  be  in  power,  was  often  ungrateful  to  those 
who  had  done  much  for  her,  —  treated  them  with  jealousy 
and  suspicion,  exiled  or  executed  them.     The  great  Dante 

1  Ammirato,  Istorie  Fiorentine,  vol.  11,  p.  904.  TroUope,  vol.  II,  p.  312, 
has  names  the  same,  with  slight  modifications  in  spelling. 

*  T.  A.  Trollope,  A  History  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Florence,  London, 
1865,  vol.  II,  p.  312. 

Prof.  Henry  S.  Pancoast,  in  Poet-Lore,  1889,  vol.  I,  pp.  557,  558,  quotes 
Trollope's  statement,  a  part  of  which  we  have  given  above.  Pancoast 
presents  it  under  the  mistaken  idea  that  it  is  a  translation  of  Ammirato's 
words.  Miss  Porter  and  Miss  Clarke  {Camberwell  Ed  of  Browning,  vol.  Ill, 
pp.  329,  330)  and  Berdoe  {Browning  Cyclopcedia,  p.  261),  following  Pancoast 
without  looking  the  matter  up,  fall  into  the  same  error.  In  both  cases, 
all  the  misprints  in  the  excerpt  as  it  appeared  in  Poet-Lore  are  faithfully  pre- 
served. The  worst  of  these  is  calling  Count  Bertoldo  Orsini  "a  Ventusian 
captain"  where  Trollope  has  "a  Venturiere  captain"  (Italian,  Venturiere,  an 
adventurer).  A  careful  examination  of  the  passage  (Part  I,  Bk.  XVII, 
Year  1404,  Gonfalonier  675,  i.e.  in  the  ed.  of  1647,  vol.  II,  p.  904)  in  which 
Ammirato  gives  an  account  of  this  expedition  shows  nothing  there,  nor  in 
the  pages  following,  which  resembles  what  Trollope  gives  after  naming  the 
three  commissaries.  And  an  examination  of  the  passage  and  its  context  in 
Trollope's  history  (reference  as  above)  shows  that  he  does  not  quote  it, 
nor  intend  it  to  be  taken  as  a  translation  from  Ammirato.  Frequently  in 
his  history  Trollope  speaks  in  this  way  —  "we,"  identifying  himself  with  the 
Florentines  of  whom  he  is  writing. 


276 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


was  banished  in  1302,  through  the  influence  of  his  enemies, 
the  Neri  family,  and  spent  the  last  nineteen  years  of  his 
life  in  humiliation  and  exile,  wandering  from  place  to 
place.  Within  the  thirty  years  preceding  the  conquest 
of  Pisa,  many  had  had  the  experience  of  being  expelled 
from  Florence  through  the  schemes  and  accusations  of 
their  opponents.  Some,  like  Michele  di  Lando,^  had  tried 
sincerely  and  unselfishly  to  serve  the  people.  Others 
suffered  on  account  of  the  rivalry  between  the  leading 
families.  In  1433,  even  the  Medici  found  what  such 
treatment  was  like,  when  their  head,  Cosimo  (the  Elder), 
was  exiled  at  the  instigation  of  the  Albizzi  family.  When 
recalled  to  Florence  a  year  later,  he  in  turn  drove  into 
exile  in  all  directions  those  who  had  opposed  him  or  were 
likely  to  do  so. 

10.  Browning  is,  then,  well  within  historical  probabilities 
when  he  sets  Luria  in  such  circumstances  as  we  find  him 
in  at  the  opening  of  this  play. 

IV.  The  Story 

I.  The  war  is  on  between  Florence  and  Pisa.  The 
men  of  Lucca,  a  dozen  miles  to  the  northeast,  have  thrown 
in  their  fortunes  with  the  Pisans.  We  are  introduced  to 
the  crisis  of  the  war.  Luria,  the  splendid  soldier  from  the 
East,  has  been  appointed  commander-in-chief  of  Florence's 
army  and  has  outgeneraled  Tiburzio,  commander  of  the 
Pisans.  He  has  seized  the  several  points  of  vantage  and 
shuts  Pisa  (i.e.  the  army  of  Pisa)  safe  from  help  on  every 
side.  The  Lucchese  arrive  too  late.  Luria  must,  in  the 
battle  he  delivers  now,  beat  Pisa's  best  troops  and  first 
of  chiefs  —  Tiburzio.2 

*  Exiled  in  1378. 

*  The  substance  and  many  of  the  phrases  of  p.  379, 11.  8-13. 


LURIA  277 

"Lima  holds  Pisa's  fortune  in  his  hand."  * 

As  Act  I  opens,  it  is  expected  that  the  battle  will  begin  in 
an  hour.2 

2.  But  Luria  is  surrounded  on  every  side  by  jealousy, 
suspicion,  and  espionage : 

a.  Puccio,  the  former  commander  of  the  Florentine 
army,  removed  by  the  government,  is  now  Luria's  chief 
officer.  And  it  is  hard  for  him,  and  he  is  jealous  and 
bitter.  He  is  full  of  complaints  as  to  Luria's  conduct  of 
the  campaign  and  has  furnished  notes  on  the  matter  to  the 
commissary,  —  little  dreaming,  however,  how  these  notes 
were  to  be  used.  In  Act  III  when  he  finds  how  his  notes 
actually  were  used,  he  is  amazed.  With  him  it  was  only 
jealousy  and  sensitiveness  at  having  another  man  appointed 
over  him.     He  says : 

"It  was  not  for  a  trial  —  surely,  no  — 
I  furnished  you  those  notes  from  time  to  time? 
I  held  myself  aggrieved  —  I  am  a  man  — 
And  I  might  speak,  —  ay,  and  speak  mere  truth,  too, 
And  yet  not  mean  at  bottom  of  my  heart 
What  should  assist  a  —  trial,  do  you  say? 
You  should  have  told  me  ! "  ' 

But  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  harm  he  has  done  has  been 
more  than  he  intended,  Puccio's  real  attitude  must  be 
recognized :  there's  Puccio  all  the  while,  sensitive,  critical, 
jealous,  with  an  eye  on  Luria's  every  movement.  See  it 
at  the  beginning  of  Act  I,  see  it  at  the  beginning  of  Act  III. 

h.  Then  there's  Braccio,  the  commissary  of  the  republic 
of  Florence,  —  constantly  sending  reports  of  Luria's  move- 
ments and  quite  incapable  of  believing  that  Luria  is  serving 
Florence  for  any  generous  ends.  This  is  the  old  fault  of 
the  entirely  selfish  man  —  his  inability  to  understand  the 

1  P.  379, 1.  IS.  *  P.  379,  U.  I,  2.  » P.  390, 11.  42-48. 


278  BROWNING  STUDIES 

generous  man's  generosity  —  his  projecting  himself  into 
the  generous  man  and  misinterpreting  his  motives.  Brac- 
cio,  in  all  sincerity,  fears  what  Luria  may  do  when  he  has 
conquered  Pisa  and  has  at  his  back  an  army  unemployed 
—  an  army  which  already  fairly  worships  him.^ 

And  Luria  has,  in  his  great  unsuspicious  way,  done 
plenty  of  things  that  can  be  misinterpreted.  It  is  only 
the  little  man  who  shapes  his  conduct  by  the  constant 
question  ''What  are  people  going  to  think  of  this ?  "  Luria 
has  had  ''a  dallying  interchange  of  courtesies"  with  the 
Pisan  commander.  He  has  even  dropped  such  remarks 
as  we  hear  him  making  in  Act  I  when  he  says  what  will 
they  do  with  him  after  the  war  is  over  —  that  he  will  be 
dangerous  if  his  strength  is  not  employed  —  that  one 
with  half  the  power  he  possesses  grows  formidable.^  This 
is  simply  ingenuous  jest ;  the  great  Moor  is  as  frank  as  a 
child.  He  laughs  at  them  and  even  starts  to  ask  jokingly 
what  Florence  would  do  if  he  should  combine  forces  with 
Tiburzio,  and  is  cut  short  by  a  trumpet  outside  before 
he  can  conclude  the  sentence.^  All  this  is  just  his  way  of 
teasing  scared  little  men,  less  regal  than  himself. 

But  every  act  and  syllable  is  reported  by  Braccio  to 
Florence,  and  exaggerated  and  given  a  sinister  meaning. 
And  the  upshot  is  that,  this  very  day  when  Luria  fights 
the  decisive  battle  with  the  Pisans,  he  is  being  tried  for 
treason  in  Florence  on  the  evidence  which  Braccio  has 
furnished.^    Such  trial  of  a  man  in  his  absence  seems  to  us 

1  Nothing  is  finer  than  soldiers'  devotion  to  a  real  commander.  The 
attitude  certainly  is  akin  to  worship.     Cf.  p.  380, 1.  55. 

2  P.  383, 11.  60-67.  '  P.  383,  U.  72-75- 
*  It  would  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  the  trial  has  been  going  on  for  some 

time  and  concludes  to-day, —  to-day  is  the  time  for  the  court's  verdict.  That 
this  is  the  situation  is  shown  by  many  passages,  e.g.  p.  380, 11.  28,  29,  46-52 ; 
p.  390, 11.  32-39. 


LURIA  279 

pretty  bad,  but  probably  was  quite  in  conformity  with 
ways  of  doing  in  many  parts  of  Europe  500  years  ago. 
And  Luria,  altogether  in  ignorance  of  what  is  going  on,  is 
eager  to  join  battle  for  Florence  against  Pisa. 

c.  Braccio's  secretary,  Jacopo  (nicknamed  "Lapo"  ^),  is 
only  a  part  of  Braccio's  doing,  although  he  sometimes  argues 
against  the  representation  of  Luria's  acts  and  words  which 
Braccio  makes  him  write  to  Florence.^  But  Braccio  overrules 
him,  of  course.  Jacopo's  personality  is  not  strong  and  his 
position  is  so  subordinate  that  he  can  carry  little  weight. 

d.  But  there  is  another  influence,  more  subtle  than 
any  of  these,  weaving  its  plot  about  the  great  unsuspecting 
soldier  Luria.  That  is  the  influence  of  a  noble  lady  of 
Florence,  Domizia.^  She  has  followed  Luria  to  the  war 
with  the  sole  purpose  of  finally  accompHshing  through  him 
her  revenge  on  Florence.  For  her  two  brothers,  Porzio 
and  Berto,  who  served  Florence,  have  been  accused,  tried, 
and  condemned  —  the  one  sent  into  exile,  the  other  to 
execution.^  Her  father  has  died  of  a  broken  heart.  But 
she  lives  to  have  revenge.  She  knows  bitterly  the  quality 
of  Florentine  ingratitude.  She  suspects  that  Florence 
will  not  reward  Luria,  —  may  even  treat  him  with  in- 
dignity, or  something  worse.  If  she  is  at  hand  to  set  him 
on  when,  with  the  victorious  army  at  his  back,  he  is  stung 
to  vent  his  anger  on  Florence,  she  will  through  him  feed 
full  her  revenge  on  the  city  she  hates.  So  she  is  constantly 
drawing  the  web  closer  about  Luria,  to  use  him  as  the  tool 
of  her  revenge.^ 

1  P.  379,  Persons;  p.  380,  11. 30, 32,  58 ;  and  often. 

2  See  e.g.  the  conversation  p.  380, 1.  30-p.  382, 1. 17. 
'  She  is  of  the  Traversari  family,  p.  392, 1.  12. 

*  P.  384,  U.  52-71  (cf.  11.  83,  84) ;  p.  392, 11.  12-20. 

^  See  p.  384, 11.  35-84;  P-  388, 11.  43-46;  p.  390,  U.  40,  41,  48-50;  p.  395, 
l-S7-P-396,l.  32.     Cf.  p.  381,  U.  64-76. 


28o  •  BROWNING  STUDIES 

3.  In  the  midst  of  all  this  tangle  of  suspicion,  spying, 
and  plotting,  walks  Luria,  the  commander  of  the  army, 
the  idol  of  his  soldiers.  And  there  are,  besides  his  soldiers, 
two  others  who  believe  in  him : 

a.  One  is  Husain,  a  Moor,  his  friend,  who  warns  him 
not  to  trust  these  Florentines;  Husain  has  an  instinct 
that  they  are  against  Luria. ^ 

b.  The  other  one  who  believes  in  Luria  is  Tiburzio,  the 
Pisan  commander,  who  honors  Luria  from  his  soul  as  a 
foeman  worthy  of  his  steel,  and  admires  the  man  who  has 
outgeneraled  him  and  whose  glory  is  in  a  fair  fight.^ 

4.  It  is  the  morning  of  the  battle,  and  Luria  is  sure  of 
victory.  It  is  Puccio  who,  in  spite  of  all  his  jealousy, 
declares  that 

"Luria  holds  Pisa's  fortune  in  his  hand."  ' 

It  is  Puccio  who,  in  spite  of  all  his  jealousy,  adds  that  this 
Moor  justifies  Florence's  choice, 

"In  no  point  has  this  stranger  failed  his  friends."  * 

But  when  Puccio  is  gone  out,  Braccio  tears  up  the  letter 
which  has  been  written  under  Puccio's  direction,  and 
prepares  another  letter  casting  further  suspicions  upon 
Luria  and  urging  the  court  to  send  Luria's  sentence  to-day.^ 
Luria  delays  the  battle.  His  hope  is  that  the  men  of 
Lucca  will  arrive,  —  so  that  he  may  have  them  and  the 
Pisans  together  and  make  a  clean  sweep  of  them  all.  He 
has  an  irresistible  advantage;  Pisans  —  Lucchese  —  to- 
gether, he  will  sweep  away  for  Florence's  sake.  And  so 
the  battle  waits  till  noon. 

1  See  p.  38s,  11.  18-76.    Cf.  p.  394, 1.  ss-p.  395, 1.  56. 
«  See  p.  386, 1.  is-p.  387, 1.  41.     Cf.  p.  392, 11.  23-47 ;  p.  401, 11.  6-30. 
»  P.  379,  1.  15.  "  P.  380,  11.  8-13. 

»  P.  380, 11.  18-29,  with  the  stage  directions ;  cf.  p.  382, 1. 17. 


LURIA  I  281 

5.  In  the  second  Act,  a  man  from  the  Pisan  army  comes 
to  call  on  Luria.  Supposed  at  first  to  be  a  messenger, 
this  man  turns  out  to  be  the  Pisan  general  Tiburzio  him- 
self. And  he  has  come,  not  to  make  overtures  for  surrender 
now  that  his  army  is  caught,  but  he  has  come  for  Luria's 
own  sake.  Tiburzio's  men  have  intercepted,  over  and  over 
again,  the  letters  sent  by  Braccio  to  Florence.^  And  from 
these  letters  Tiburzio  knows  how  the  case  against  Luria  has 
been  developed.  He  brings  to  Luria  now,  still  unopened, 
the  letter  we  saw  Braccio  dictating  in  Act  I,  and  tells  Luria 
to  open  that  and  confirm  what  he  is  saying.  Tiburzio  urges 
that  Florence  hates  Luria.  Luria  is  not  bound  by  blood  to 
Florence.  He  is  a  foreigner.  Join  Pisa  now,  and  Pisa  will 
love  and  honor  him.     Such  is  the  temptation. 

The  great  Moorish  soldier  is  bewildered  like  a  man  who 
has  received  a  sudden  blow.  He  tells  Tiburzio  to  go 
back  to  his  army  and,  when  he  arrives  there,  to  sound  his 
trumpet.  If  there  is  no  answer  from  Luria's  trumpet, 
the  Pisan  chief  is  to  understand  that  Luria  will  desert 
Florence  and  join  Pisa.  If  Luria's  trumpet  answers,  it 
means  that  he  stays  with  Florence  and  fights  out  the  battle. 

*  We  need  not  be  confused  over  how  it  could  be  that  Tiburzio  could  inter- 
cept the  letters  and  yet  the  letters  could  reach  Florence  and  be  used  against 
Luria.  Browning  has  made  it  perfectly  clear.  Two  copies  of  the  letters 
in  each  instance  were  sent  simultaneously  by  separate  messengers  —  a 
military  precaution,  so  that  if  one  messenger  was  captured  or  killed,  still 
there  was  a  chance  that  the  other  one  might  get  through.  We  hear  the 
directions  in  Act  I  (p.  379,  11.  18-20;  cf.  p.  380,  1.  18)  as  to  sending  the 
present  letter  in  duplicate  that  way.  Of  course,  this  is  put  in  by  Browning 
so  that  we  wiU  draw  the  inference  that  such  was  Braccio's  usual  plan  in 
dispatching  his  communications  to  the  Signory.  And  it  has  often  turned 
out  that  Tiburzio's  men  have  captured  one  messenger,  but  the  other  has 
reached  Florence.  Apparently  it  has  not  occurred  to  Braccio  that  his 
letters'  falling  into  the  enemy's  hands  could  in  any  way  work  to  thwart 
his  plot  against  Luria,  even  if  he  knows  that  sometimes  only  one  messenger 
has  gotten  through. 


•282  BROWNING  STUDIES 

When  the  Pisan  commander  is  gone,  Braccio,  Puccio, 
and  Domizia  all  come  in.  Luria,  in  utter  frankness,  shows 
them  the  letter  which  Tiburzio  has  given  him,  and  asks 
them  if  he  shall  open  it  and  find  how  Florence  will  reward 
him.  And  as  Tiburzio 's  trumpet  rings  out  in  the  distance, 
Luria  tears  the  unopened  letter  into  pieces  and  commands 
Puccio  to  sound  the  Florentine  trumpet  in  reply,  —  to 
set  the  battle  on. 

6.  Act  III  is  in  the  afternoon  after  the  battle.  The 
Pisans  are  defeated  and  Tiburzio,  their  commander,  is  a 
prisoner.  Puccio,  in  jealousy,  tries  to  criticise  the  move- 
ment of  the  troops  and  Luria' s  personal  participation  in 
the  fighting,  but  grudgingly  acknowledges  that  it  is  a 
splendid  victory.  Even  Braccio  admits  that  "this  battle 
saves  Florence."  ^  But  a  cloud  comes  over  Luria's  joy 
of  victory.  Instead  of  approaching  him  with  honest 
thanks  and  sincere  admiration,  these  Florentines  seem 
more  jealous  and  suspicious  than  ever.  He  sees  it  now, 
as  Husain  had  seen  it  before.  It  is  more  apparent  to 
Luria  now,  after  what  Tiburzio  told  him.  Luria's  dream 
of  how  he  would  help  and  honor  Florence  seems  to  be  pass- 
ing into  something  very  different  just  as  it  was  coming  true : 

"This  instant  while  I  speak 
Is  like  the  turning-moment  of  a  dream 
When  something  changes  in  the  friendly  eyes 

...  so  slight,  so  slight  .  .  . 
And  yet  it  tells  you  they  are  dead  and  gone, 
Or  changed  and  enemies,  for  all  their  words. 

Come!    I  feel  it  in  my  blood, 
My  eyes,  my  hair,  a  voice  is  in  my  ears 
That  spite  of  all  this  smiling  and  soft  speech 
You  are  betraying  me."  ^ 

» P.  389,  11.  70,  71.  » P.  389,  1.  74;  p.  390, 11.  I,  5-8,  16-19. 


LURIA  283 

And  Braccio  admits  that  charges  have  been  lodged  against 
Luria  in  Florence  and  that  a  trial  is  there  being  held,  and 
finally  that  the  verdict  will  arrive  in  camp  to-night.  Brac- 
cio claims  that  Florence  has  the  right  thus  to  treat  with 
suspicion  any  individual,  for  the  sake  of  safety  to  the 
whole  state. 

What  shall  Luria  do,  treated  thus  in  his  hour  of  triimiph 
over  Pisa,  burning  with  anger  for  being  accused  of  treason, 
goaded  now  by  Domizia  to  turn  against  Florence,  and 
urged  again  by  Tiburzio  to  go  over  to  the  side  of  Pisa  and 
take  command  of  the  army  of  the  Pisans  and  Lucchese? 
Luria  never  loses  his  self-control.  He  answers  that  he 
will  wait  until  his  sentence  comes  from  Florence  at  night, 
before  he  does  anything.  He  sets  Tiburzio  free  and  sends 
Braccio  to  Florence  with  this  word  from  Luria  to  the 
Signory : 

"That  while  I  wait  my  sentence,  theirs  waits  them."  ^ 

7.  Act  IV,  at  evening,  shows  us  Husain  and  Domizia 
each  urging  Luria  to  crush  Florence.  But  besides  this, 
the  Act  shows  two  things  even  more  significant  : 

a.  One  is,  that  some  word  has  gotten  about  among 
the  Florentine  army  as  to  the  plots  against  Luria  and  the 
trial  in  which  these  have  culminated,  and  the  army,  idolizing 
him  more,  if  possible,  since  the  battle  of  the  day  than  before, 
waits  simply  for  a  sign  from  him  to  overturn  the  government 
of  Florence.^ 

h.  And  the  other  significant  thing  which  this  Act  shows 
us  is  Luria  talking  to  himself  of  his  love  and  admiration 
for  Florence.     What  would  it  avail  to  wreak  his  vengeance 

1  P.  393, 1-25. 

'This  is  readily  gathered  from  Puccio's  conversation  with  Jacopo,  es- 
pecially the  part  of  it  p.  393, 1.  79-p.  394, 1.  54.    Notice  p.  394, 11.  i-io,  43-53- 


284  BROWNING  STUDIES 

on  Florence?  He  loves  Florence  so  much  that,  if  he  in- 
jured Florence,  it  would  be  only  hurting  himself.  He  sees 
that  when  the  rage  for  vengeance  is  past,  it  would  but 
darken  his  own  Hfe  to  know  that  Florentines  walk  with 
sadder  step  because  he  turned  the  army  against  them.  He 
cannot  do  it.  He  will  not  compromise.  Rather,  he  takes 
from  his  breast  a  little  vial  and  drinks  the  slow  poison,  — 
the  only  thing  he  brought  with  him  from  his  own  land.^ 

8.  The  fifth  Act,  later  in  the  night,  shows  the  effect 
which  this  man's  nobility  and  sincerity  have  in  the  lives 
of  others.  One  by  one  they  turn  to  him,  —  those  who  were 
jealous  of  him,  suspected  him,  or  plotted  against  him : 

a.  Knowing  that  his  time  is  short,  Luria  is  impressing 
upon  Puccio  the  details  of  new  fortifications  for  Florence ; 
and  when  Puccio  marvels,  expecting  that  Luria  is  going 
over  to  Pisa's  side,  yet  here  he  is  working  on  plans  to 
conclude  a  line  of  fortifications  which  will  make  Florence 
stronger  against  Pisa  —  indeed,  will  make  Florence  ''queen 
o'  the  country "  —  Luria  gives  Puccio  to  understand  that 
he  is  not  going  to  Pisa.  He  does  not  undertake  to  explain, 
but  hopes  he  will  not  be  so  far  away  but  that  he  may 

1  Luria  has  carried  this  with  him  as  a  last  resort  against  dishonor.  (Cf 
his  words  p.  397, 11.  23-31 :  he  had  thought  to  drink  it  in  defeat  —  he  drinks 
it  now  after  victory.)  Some  such  resort  has  been  in  accordance  with  the 
customs  of  many  peoples.  The  ancient  Romans  are  an  illustration.  Com- 
pare also  the  Samurai  of  old  Japan,  —  with  the  two  swords,  the  long  one 
to  be  used  against  the  enemy,  the  short  one  against  himself  in  time  of  ex- 
tremity. The  survival  of  the  Samurai  spirit  was  seen  in  the  recent  Russo- 
Japanese  war  when,  in  several  instances,  Japanese  oflacers  who  had  been 
taken  prisoners  promptly  committed  suicide. 

Luria's  using  poison  instead  of  sword  or  dagger  has  been  referred  to  in 
our  remarks  in  connection  with  Tresham's  suicide  at  the  end  of  A  Blot  in  the 
'Scutcheon.  It  is  possible  that  Browning  had  information  that,  among 
the  Moors,  it  was  the  custom  for  men  of  uncompromising  spirit  to  carry  a 
"quiet  remedy"  like  this.  Or  it  may  be  that  he  has  conjectured  that  such 
would  be  a  custom  consistent  with  Moorish  character. 


LURIA  285 

"hear,  enjoy  and  praise  each  happy  blow'*  which  Puccio 
strikes  for  Florence.^  In  answer  to  his  further  questions, 
Puccio  is  assured  that  Luria  has  a  friend  to  count  on,  an 
all-potent  friend.^  When  Puccio  protests  that  he  himself 
will  get  credit,  not  due  him,  for  ideas  which  were  Luria's, 
Luria  is  glad  to  have  it  so.^  And  Puccio  cannot  resist 
such  magnanimity ;  he  feels  his  own  unworthiness,  con- 
fesses his  past  folly,  and  swears  that  at  the  worst  he  will 
follow  Luria  to  exile  or  to  death. ^    And  Luria  says : 

"One  face  is  left  to  take  into  the  night."  ^ 

b.  Then  comes  Jacopo,  the  secretary,  and  confesses 
what  a  change  Luria's  nobleness  has  wrought  in  him ;  no 
more  will  he  be  a  tool  in  Braccio's  hands  —  he  has  now  a 
will  and  courage  of  his  own ;  he  offers  all  there  is  of  him 
to  Luria  in  loyalty  and  obedience.®    And  Luria  is  glad.^ 

c.  And  Domizia  comes  and  talks  with  Luria.  Even 
before  she  learns  his  decision,  she  knows  it  will  be  a  gener- 
ous one ;  and  she  sees  that  his  generosity  is  so  much  nobler 
than  her  hunger  after  revenge.  His  nobleness  has  trans- 
formed her,  and  she  wants  him  to  spare  Florence  after  all.^ 

d.  And  as  midnight  draws  near,  the  men  are  back  from 
Florence.^  Tiburzio,  the  Pisan,  himself  has  been  there 
since  Luria  set  him  free,  and  has  exonerated  Luria.  And 
Braccio,  the  chief  plotter,  has  told  the  truth  in  Florence  — 

iR  398,  U.  14-17- 

*  P.  398, 11.  29-31,    Notice  Luria's  answer,  "He  waits  me." 
«  P.  398,  U.  31-40. 

*  P.  398, 11.  43-68. 

^  P.  398, 1.  82 ;  cf.  the  whole  statement  11.  80-82. 
"  P.  399, 11.  1-52,  especially  11.  41-52. 

7  P.  399,  U.  53-55.  - 

8  P.  399,  1.  56-p.  400, 1.  74,  especially  p.  399, 11.  56-73,  and  p.  400, 11.  50- 
74. 

»  P.  400, 11.  75  sqq. ;  cf.  p.  401, 11.  5,  36. 


286  ,  BROWNING  STUDIES  s 

the  truth  seen  by  a  new  light  —  and  begs  now  for  Luria's 
pardon ;  even  Braccio  changed  by  the  power  of  this  man's 
character.  They  come  now  with  full  honors  for  the  Moor- 
ish captain,  clearing  him  of  all  suspicions.  All  free  from 
blame,  trusted  and  applauded  by  Florence,  with  a  great 
career  opening  before  him,  Luria  stands.^  But  even  as 
Braccio  speaks,  the  fatal  poison  has  reached  its  time. 
Even  as  he  speaks,  he  notices  that  Luria's  head  sinks 
lower  and  lower.    And  the  great  soldier  is  dead.^ 

9.  It  is  a  splendid  story.  But  the  dramatic  construction 
is  often  poor.  The  technical  skill  shown  is  not  at  all  equal 
to  that  shown  in  A  Blot  in  the  ^Scutcheon.  The  conversa- 
tions are  heavy;  the  speeches  often  unnaturally  long. 
But  after  all  has  been  said  as  to  the  lack  of  dramatic  art 
in  it,  this  drama  still  keeps  its  hold  on  our  thoughts,  because 
it  is  a  splendid  study  of  the  power  of  the  nobility  and 
sincerity  of  one  great  soul.  That  is  the  real  subject  of 
the  play  —  The  Power  of  the  Nobility  and  Sincerity  of  a 
great  Soul. 

Therefore,  I  ask  you  to  let  me  close  the  lecture  with  a 
few  words  about 

V.  The  Character  of  Luria 

The  central  and  dominating  thing  in  the  play  is  the 
character  of  Luria.  All  the  circumstances  are  but  ma- 
chinery to  show  off  his  character.  All  the  other  characters 
are  only  to  draw  his  character  out. 

Amidst  all  their  pettiness,  Luria  goes  serenely  on  with 
his  large  generous  purposes.     In  the  midst  of  their  selfish 

*  This  is  the  tenor  of  Braccio's  speech  p.  401, 11.  31-47. 

» The  appearance  and  demeanor  of  Luria,  as  the  poison  takes  effect,  are 
reflected  in  Braccio's  speech :  Luria's  making  no  answer,  p.  401,  U.  37,  42, 46 ; 
the  sinking  of  his  head,  11.  33,  43. 


LURJA  287 

calculating,  he  lives  and  fights  for  generous  motives.  He, 
the  barbarian,  looks  upon  Florence  with  passionate  devo- 
tion. Her  history,  her  literature,  her  store  of  art,  all  have 
laid  hold  on  his  imagination,  until  to  serve  Florence  has 
come  to  be  a  sort  of  religion  to  him.  What  cares  he,  if 
only  he  can  serve  Florence  ?  ^  His  bitter  anger  when  he 
finds  how  they  treat  him  with  suspicion  and  misrepresen- 
tation can  only  for  an  hour  eclipse  his  love  and  veneration 
for  Florence.  Desert  Florence  he  never  can.  And  to 
be  misjudged  by  Florence  he  can  never  bear.  He  has 
trusted  Florence  as  a  child  trusts  a  mother.  And  he  finds 
that  Florence  was  trying  him  on  suspicion  of  treason  in 
the  hour  when  he  plunged  into  battle  with  joy  that  he  was 
permitted  to  do  this  to  make  Florence  safe  and  proud  and 
happy.  And  when  the  disillusionment  comes  and  he 
knows  how  Florence  feels  towards  him,  and  when  the 
temptations  crowd  upon  him  to  be  false  to  Florence,  he 
puts  himself  where  he  can  never  be  accused  of  disgracing 
Florence  any  more. 

And  his  soul  bears  the  fruit  which  any  noble  and  gener- 
ous soul  must  bear  in  the  Hfe  of  others.  And  it  is  no  marvel 
that  one  by  one  those  who  have  suspected  and  plotted 
come  back  to  tell  him  that  his  sincerity  and  nobility  have 
conquered  them. 

Once  more,  as  in  so  many  other  poems.  Browning  teaches 
that  it  is  worth  while  to  live  nobly,  generously,  and  with 
devotion  to  high  purposes. 

1  See  his  soliloquy  at  the  end  of  Act  IV.  This  attitude  is  seen  throughout. 
One  of  the  most  striking  illustrations  is  near  the  end  of  the  fifth  Act,  p.  401, 
U.  1-4,  where  on  being  told  that  there  is  "a  movement  of  the  Lucchese 
troops  southward,"  he  exclaims  "Toward  Florence?"  and  instantly,  for- 
getting for  a  moment  that  he  is  almost  at  the  point  of  death,  the  ruling 
passion  of  his  soul  flames  out  in  beginning  to  give  an  order  to  protect  the 
city  he  loved. 


XIV 

A  SOUL'S  TRAGEDY 

Pp.  402-414 

We  come  now  to  A  SouVs  Tragedy ^  the  second  of  the 
two  dramas  in  No.  8,  the  last  number  of  Bells  and  Pome- 
granates, 1846.  A  SouVs  Tragedy  consists  of  two  acts,  — 
one  in  blank  verse,  one  in  prose.  In  the  subtitle,  Brown- 
ing says : 

*'  Act  first,  being  what  was  called  the  poetry  of  Chiappino's 
life;  and  Act  second,  its  prose." 

I.  The  Place  and  Date  of  the  Action 

In  order  to  understand  any  one  of  Browning's  works, 
we  must  bear  in  mind  the  place  and  the  date  of  the  story 
related.  For  Browning  is  unusually  faithful  to  the  his- 
torical background ;  and  he  is  true  to  the  customs  of  the 
region  where  the  scene  is  laid.  He  may  invent  characters 
and  incidents,  as  in  Pippa  Passes  and  in  Luria,  but  the  set- 
ting is  correct,  and  the  whole  atmosphere  of  the  time  is  made 
real  and  living  to  a  remarkable  degree.  This  very  fact  con- 
stitutes for  some  of  us  a  difficulty  in  reading  Browning. 

So  now,  in  the  matter  of  A  SouVs  Tragedy,  the  place  and 
the  date. 

I .  The  scene  of  this  play,  like  that  of  Pippa  and  of  Luria, 
is  laid  in  Italy.  The  place  is  the  city  of  Faenza,  —  a  city 
which  now  belongs  to  the  province  of  Ravenna.  Faenza 
is  twenty  ^  miles  southwest  of  the  city  of  Ravenna,  fifty 

*  The  distance  by  the  railroad  is  31  miles,  but  it  is  a  very  devious  route. 

288 


A   SOUL'S   TRAGEDY  289 

miles  northeast  of  Florence,  and  nearly  a  hundred  miles 
south  of  Venice.  Faenza  has,  according  to  the  census  of 
1 901,  a  population  of  about  22,000.^  The  chief  industries 
of  the  town  are  silk  and  paper.^ 

2.  The  date  of  the  action  in  the  play  is  the  sixteenth 
century,  as  Browning  himself  indicates  at  the  beginning 
of  the  piece:   "Time,  15 — ." 

a.  In  the  sixteenth  century,  a  large  part  of  central 
Italy  was  papal  territory ;  i.e.  this  was  in  the  days  of  the 
temporal  power  of  the  Church,  and  the  Pope  was  king  of 
this  region  known  as  the  Papal  States. 

b.  Ravenna  was  on  the  northeastern  borders  of  the 
Papal  States,, and  in  1509  both  Ravenna  and  Faenza^  were 
annexed  to  the  Papal  States  by  Pope  Julius  II.  There- 
upon the  government  was  adjusted  so  that  Rome  governed 
Ravenna  and  Ravenna  governed  Faenza. 

c.  The  action  in  A  Souths  Tragedy  takes  place  perhaps 
not  long  after  the  annexation  of  1509.  The  drama  shows 
the  people  of  Faenza  chafing  against  government  from 
outside,  and  in  a  more  or  less  turbulent  mood,  which  is 
held  in  suppression  by  the  resident  Provost  from  Ravenna. 
For  the  Italian  loves,  has  always  loved,  liberty,  —  a  love 
for  liberty  carried  to  such  an  extreme  that  for  centuries 
Italy  was  broken  up  into  separate  and  warring  states,  and 
modern  united  Italy  dates  from  1870. 

^i.e.  22,000  in  the  town  proper,  not  counting  the  whole  commune  of 
Faenza. 

'  A  kind  of  pottery  is  named  faience  from  the  name  of  this  town.  It  is 
said  to  have  been  invented  here  in  1299.  It  has  been  extensively  manu- 
factured here,  but  is  produced  in  several  places  in  many  varieties. 

'  Faenza  was  taken  by  Cesare  Borgia  in  1501.  When  his  plans  failed, 
it  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Venetians,  with  whom  it  remained  for  several 
years,  —  till  it  passed  to  the  States  of  the  Church  in  1509. 


290  BROWNING  STUDIES 


II.  The  Story 

1.  Chiappino  is  one  of  those  who  believe  in  democratic 
government,  —  government  of  Faenza  by  the  people  of 
Faenza.  He  is  an  agitator  who  has  agitated  perhaps  ''not 
wisely,  but  too  well,"  —  so  well  that  he  has  been  fined  at 
least  three  times  and  evidently  more :  ^ 

"These  three  last  fines,  no  doubt,  one  on  the  other 
Paid  by  Luitolfo." 

"He  paid  my  fines." 

2.  And  now  Chiappino  is  banished  by  the  Provost : 

"My  eye,  the  Provost,  who  bears  all  men's  eyes, 
Banishes  now  because  he  cannot  bear."  ^ 

"A  banished  fool,  who  troubles  you  to-night 
For  the  last  time."  » 

"I  leave  the  city  on  pain  of  death."  ^ 

He  has  his  route  laid  out :  ^  to  go  out  the  Lugo  gate,  go  on 
to  Lugo  ten  miles  north,  then  through  Argenta,  past  San 
Nicolo,^  through  Ferrara,  and  on  to  Venice,  where  he  is 
safe  under  a  different  government.^ 

1  See  p.  403, 11.  70-80.    The  quotations  given  above  are  from  11.  74,  75,  77. 

2  P.  404,  U.  4,  5. 

3  P.  404, 11.  14,  15. 
<  P.  404,  1.  80. 

6  P.  406, 11.  47-62. 

8  There  is  no  difiiculty  in  tracing  this  route  except  the  difficulty  raised 
by  this  phrase  "past  San  Nicolo"  (1.  50).  The  route  tends  quite  directly 
toward  Venice.  It  is,  of  course,  probable  that  Chiappino  might  go  in  a 
somewhat  roundabout  way  to  escape  detection  (he  expects  to  go  disguised, 
11.  48,  52,  55,  56),  but  the  only  San  Nicolo  I  find  is  impossible.  It  is  away 
west  of  Piacenza  and  not  over  30  miles  southeast  of  Milan.  Browning 
must  have  meant  some  fort  or  village  of  this  name  which  is  not  on  any  of  the 
maps  to  which  I  have  access. 

'  Venice  was  an  independent  republic,  —  had  been  so  for  several  centuries. 


A  SOWS   TRAGEDY  29I 

3.  This  is  the  evening  of  his  departure.  But  his  true 
friend,  Luitolfo,  who  is  in  the  good  graces  of  the  Provost, 
has  gone  to  the  Provost  to  beg  him  to  mitigate  the  sentence 
of  exile  which  he  has  pronounced  on  Chiappino.  Act  I 
opens  while  Chiappino  and  Eulalia,  Luitolfo's  betrothed, 
are  waiting  for  Luitolfo's  return  from  this  mission. 

4.  Eulalia  is  worried  because  he  has  been  gone  so  long.* 
Chiappino  for  a  while  does  not  answer.^  As  soon  as  he 
begins  to  talk,  we  find  that  he  is  cynical  and  embittered,  — 
humiliated  by  the  fact  that  his  friend  Luitolfo  has  paid 
his  fines  for  him  and  now  has  gone  to  seek  clemency  for 
him,  —  angry  even  at  their  pity.^  He  contrasts  Luitolfo's 
prosperity  with  his  own  misfortunes.^  He  is  embittered 
also  because  he  has  loved  Eulalia  but  Luitolfo  won  her.^ 
Chiappino  claims  that  his  own  misfortunes  are  due  to  his 
uncompromising  holding  to  his  principles  and  his  fearlessness 
in  expressing  them.^  He  disparages  Luitolfo's  kindness  to 
him.^  He  holds  uncompromisingly  to  his  ideals  and 
despises  all  who  look  favorably  on  anything  else.^ 

5.  He  is  interrupted  in  his  speech  by  loud  knocking. 
Knowing  it  is  Luitolfo  returned,  he  adds  in  fine  irony : 

" —  bless  my  hero-friend, 
Luitolfo!"  9 

And  when  Eulalia  exclaims,  "How  he  knocks !"  Chiappino 
sarcastically  remarks  that  probably  Luitolfo  has  come 
running  back  frightened  because  the  Provost  "shrugged 
his  shoulder."  ^^ 

1  P.  402, 11. 1-9.  2  p.  402, 11. 10,  II. 

3  p.  404, 11.  26-29.  *  P-  403,  U-  S-32;  cf.  1.  46. 

^  P.  403, 1.  8a-p.  404, 1.  I ;  cf.  p.  405, 11.  22-36. 

•  P.  403,  U.  37-41,  46-67.  '  P.  404,  1-  68-p.  405,  1.  19. 

8  P.  40s,  U.  48-64.  '  P.  40s,  U-  64,  65. 

"  P.  405, 11.  65-81,  especially  11.  70,  71. 


292 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


6.  When  the  door  is  opened,  Luitolfo  rushes  in, — 
garments  disordered  and  stained  with  blood.  Chiappino 
supposes  that  the  Provost  or  his  guards  have  struck  Lui- 
tolfo, and  that  the  blood  on  his  garments  is  his  own  blood : 
he  is  for  going  at  once  himself  to  take  vengeance  on  the 
Provost.  Luitolfo  explains  that  it  is  the  Provost's  blood 
and  supposes  that  he  has  killed  the  Provost.  The  guards 
are  after  Luitolfo  and  he  is  doomed.  Instantly  Chiappino 
grasps  the  situation,  crowds  upon  Luitolfo  his  own  disguise 
and  the  outline  of  his  route  to  Venice,  takes  Luitolfo's 
vest  for  the  sake  of  the  blood  on  it,  pushes  him  out  of  the 
door  and  stands  in  his  place  to  accept  the  punishment  for 
the  crime. 

As  the  throng  rushes  in,  Chiappino  declares  himself  the 
one  who  killed  the  Provost,  but  suddenly  it  becomes  evident 
that  the  crowd  is  the  enthusiastic  populace  proclaiming  as 
patriot  and  deliverer  the  man  who  struck  the  Provost,  — 
the  fact  being  that  the  Provost's  guards  have  fled  with  him 
in  their  hands  toward  Ravenna. 

When  it  turns  out  that  the  one  who  smote  the  Provost 
is  hailed  as  patriot  and  hero,  Eulalia's  eyes  challenge 
Chiappino  to  tell  the  truth  and  give  Luitolfo  the  honor. 
He  answers  aside  that  he  understands,  but  this  is  no  time 
to  do  it ;  he  will  explain  it  to  the  people  to-morrow  when 
they  are  calmer.  So  he  goes  with  the  crowd  triumphantly 
to  the  market-place. 

This  whole  thing  might  easily  happen  just  so  in  the 
evening  and  take  this  unexpected  turn,  when  you  consider 
the  attitude  of  the  people  toward  the  Provost  appointed  by 
Ravenna. 

The  whole  scene  from  Luitolfo's  entrance  to  the  end  of 
the  Act  is  one  of  extraordinary  vividness  and  rapidity.^ 
1  P.  406, 1.  i-p.  407, 1. 47. 


A  sours  TRAGEDY 


293 


7.   Act  II  is  written  in  simple  and  beautiful  prose. 

It  is  exactly  a  month  ^  after  that  memorable  night  when 
the  guards  fled  toward  Ravenna  with  the  wounded  Provost 
—  wounded  J  not  dead.  Now  the  crowd  is  assembled  in  front 
of  the  Provost's  palace  at  Faenza  to  hear  a  new  Provost 
proclaimed.  Luitolfo  in  disguise,  mingling  with  the  crowd, 
learns  some  interesting  things,  —  things  which  Eulalia 
did  not  tell  him  in  her  letters.^  Now  he  learns  that  Chiap- 
pino  is  esteemed  by  the  people  as  one  who  "rose  in  soUtary 
majesty"  and  "dealt  the  godlike  blow,"  ^  and  that  he  is 
to  be  proclaimed  Provost  to-day.  Luitolfo  learns  also 
that  the  people  have  a  very  poor  opinion  of  himself  (Lui- 
tolfo) and  of  his  disappearance  a  month  ago.  Representing 
himself  to  be  a  friend  of  Luitolfo  and  asking  a  few  questions, 
he  easily  learns  these  things,^  and  his  informants  throw 
in  the  additional  cheering  information  that  Chiappino  is 
expected  to  succeed  to  Luitolfo's  estates  and  probably  to 
marry  Eulalia  to  whom  Luitolfo  was  engaged.^  Luitolfo, 
a  good  deal  upset  by  the  whole  information,  decides  to  see 
Chiappino  and  Eulalia  before  allowing  himself  to  believe 
it  all.6 

The  conversation  in  the  crowd  is  very  good.  It  includes, 
besides  the  points  we  have  just  noted,  an  account  of  the 
visit,  a  month  ago,  of  Ogniben,  the  Pope's  Legate,  and  of 
how  he  handled  the  situation,  especially  his  handling  of 
Chiappino.^  Ogniben  comes  now  a  month  later  to  complete 
the  matter. 

1  P.  407, 11.  48-56,  especially  11.  52,  53 ;  cf.  p.  409, 11.  76,  77. 

*  See  his  comment,  p.  409,  11.  86-97. 
'P.  407, 11.  77-79;  cf.  11.  53-56. 

*  P.  407, 1.  48-p.  408, 1.  43. 

6  P.  408, 11.  43-48 ;  p.  409, 11.  74-85. 

«  P.  409,  11.  97-100. 

'  This  part  of  the  conversation  is  p.  408, 1.  52-p.  409, 1.  74. 


294  r  BROWNING  STUDIES 

8.  Just  before  the  Pope's  Legate  enters  to  carry  out  the 
ceremonies,  Luitolfo  observes  Chiappino  and  Eulalia  come 
in.  They  are  discussing  the  change  which  Chiappino  has 
undergone.     Eulalia  is  keen  and  searching : 

a.  She  taxes  Chiappino  with  having  changed  his  prin- 
ciples.    He  hedges  and  will  not  confess  it.^ 

b.  She  taxes  him  with  having  changed  the  love  which 
he  so  vehemently  professed  for  her.  She  is  not  saying 
that  she  returned  his  love,  —  she  is  simply  testing  him 
on  the  grounds  he  had  announced  as  his.  Again  he  hedges 
and  expatiates.^ 

c.  Then  she  questions  him  about  the  change  in  his  friend- 
ship for  Luitolfo,  in  thus  taking  honor  due  Luitolfo.  He 
claims  that  the  deed  of  striking  the  Provost  was  his  in 
intention,  therefore  his  now  just  the  same,  because  Luitolfo 
did  it  without  premeditation.^ 

9.  Now  comes  in  the  Pope's  Legate,  Ogniben,  —  suave, 
subtle,  accustomed  to  wheedle  turbulent  men  until  he  finds 
out  the  truth  and  has  his  way,  while  they  imagine  he  agrees 
with  them. 

Nothing  could  be  done  more  flatteringly  and  shrewdly 
than  his  conversation  now  with  Chiappino,  all  the  time 
protesting,  as  he  leads  him  on,  that  he  is  only  developing 
the  ideas  on  Chiappino's  own  foundations.  But  Ogniben 
has  not  known  *'three-and- twenty  leaders  of  revolts"^ 
for  nothing,  and  he  is  quite  sure  that  Chiappino  did  not 
strike  the  blow  at  the  Provost  a  month  ago,  although  he 
professes  that  the  wounded  Provost  did  not  know  who 
wounded  him.  (Of  course,  the  Provost  knew,  and  had 
told  Ogniben.)     So,  after  playing  long  enough  with  Chiap- 

1  P.  409, 1.  loi-p.  410, 1.  30.         2  p  4Jo^  11  31-47.         3  P.  410, 11.  48-67. 
*  His  stock  remark :  p.  408, 11.  79-81 ;  p.  410, 11.  68,  69;  cf.  the  significant 
change  p.  414, 11.  37,  38. 


A  SOUL'S  TRAGEDY  295 

pino,  Ogniben  remarks  to  him  that  he  will  proclaim  him 
Provost  with  one  ^' novel  stipulation,"  viz.  ^'that  in  the 
event  of  the  discovery  of  the  actual  assailant  of  the  late 
Provost — "  he  is  interrupted  by  Chiappino,  but  goes 
serenely  on  —  "why,  he  shall  suffer  the  proper  penalty, 
of  course."  ^ 

Then  turning  to  the  populace,^  the  proclamation  making 
Chiappino  Provost  being  conspicuous  by  its  absence, 
Ogniben  asks  whimsically : 

"My  good  friends!  (nay,  two  or  three  of  you  will  answer 
every  purpose)  —  who  was  it  fell  upon  and  proved  nearly  the 
death  of  your  late  Provost?  Who  dealt  the  blow  that  night, 
does  anybody  know?" ' 

Luitolfo  steps  forward  and  confesses  the  deed.^  Chiappino 
has  nothing  to  say.^  Ogniben,  shaping  a  homily  on  the 
text  ''Let  whoso  thinketh  he  standeth  take  heed  lest  he 
fall,"  ^  sends  Luitolfo  home  without  punishment  and  looks 
humorously  after  Chiappino,  who  has  found  a  sudden 
interest  in  the  street  leading  toward  the  Lugo  gate,  in  the 
direction  of  Venice ;  ^  then  takes  the  keys  of  the  Provost's 
palace  and  goes  his  way,  with  the  remark,  ''I  have  known 
F(?wr-and- twenty  leaders  of  revolts."  * 

1  P.  413, 11.  59-72 ;  cf .  also  11.  73-75. 

2  Ogniben  and  Chiappino  have  not  gone  up  the  palace-steps :  "  See  the 
good  people  crowding  about  yonder  palace-steps  —  which  we  may  not  have 
to  ascend,  after  all"  (p.  413,  U.  83-85). 

3  P.  413, 11.  85-88,  92,  93.  '*  P.  413,  U.  94-111. 
5  This  is  plain  from  Ogniben's  remark  p.  413,  11.  122-124. 

•  I  Cor.  10 :  12.  The  text  is  given  above  as  quoted  by  Browning,  p.  413, 
11.  120,  121. 

^  In  Ogniben's  last  speech  (p.  413,  11.  i!6  sqq.),  the  whole  closing  action 
of  the  play  is  reflected.  His  remarks  as  he  sees  Chiappino  running  away 
are  exceedingly  good:  p.  414,  11.  29-34;  cf.  p.  413,  11.  124  sqq.,  where  he 
sees  Chiappino  getting  ready  to  make  a  dash. 

8  P.  414, 11.  37,  38.    It  was  "three-and-twenty"  up  to  this  point. 


296 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


III.  The  Character-Studies  in  the  Play 

The  character-studies  in  the  play  are  unusually  good. 

1.  Luitolfo  is  a  big-hearted  true  friend.  He  has  grown 
up  with  Chiappino  and  does  not  forsake  him  when  Chiap- 
pino  by  his  agitations  has  gotten  himself  into  trouble. 
Luitolfo  pays  his  friend's  fines.  He  never  suspects  his 
friend  of  being  in  love  with  Eulalia,  his  own  fiancee.  Lui- 
tolfo goes  to  the  Provost  to  plead  for  a  change  in  the  sen- 
tence of  banishment  finally  pronounced  on  Chiappino, 
and  it  is  loyalty  to  Chiappino  which  makes  him  answer 
the  Provost's  attitude  at  last  with  a  blow.  When  Luitolfo 
returns  in  disguise  a  month  later,  he  is  slow  to  believe  that 
Chiappino  has  availed  himself  of  the  unforeseen  success 
of  that  blow. 

Luitolfo  is  a  consistent  character  and  altogether  a  likable 
sort  of  fellow. 

2.  Eulalia  is  a  character  not  so  plainly  evident.  She 
loves  Luitolfo  sincerely  and  seems  to  be  entirely  faithful 
to  him.  But  she  is  no  match  for  Chiappino's  bitter  sar- 
casm. When  he  declares  that  he  loved  her  before  Luitolfo 
won  her,  she  does  not  answer  with  the  splendid  ringing 
devotion  which  her  accepted  lover  deserves.     She  asks : 

"What  forced 
Or  forces  me  to  be  Luitolfo's  bride?"  * 

When  Chiappino  has  taken  Luitolfo's  place  and  expects 
to  die,  he  in  his  hard  reckless  mood  sneers :  *'How  natural 
to  sing  now!"  She  makes  the  answer,  rather  weak  and 
nerveless  under  the  strain  of  the  tense  crisis:  ''Hush  and 
pray!"^  When  the  fact  comes  out  that  the  populace 
hail  as  hero  the  man  who  struck  the  Provost,  she  lacks  the 

1  P.  404, 11.  61,  62.  2  p.  407, 1.  6. 


A  SOUUS  TRAGEDY  297 

courage  to  speak  out  —  leaves  them  to  believe  that  Chiap- 
pino  is  the  man.  There  was  nothing  to  gain  and  every- 
thing to  lose  for  Luitolfo  by  her  silence. 

When  she  writes  to  Luitolfo  about  how  things  are  going, 
she  has  not  told  him  the  facts  about  the  attitude  of  the 
people  nor  about  Chiappino's  ambitions.  It  is  all  a  sur- 
prise to  Luitolfo  when  he  comes  back  in  disguise  and 
mingles  with  the  crowd.  This  surely  is  not  very  loyal  to 
her  absent  and  misrepresented  lover. 

When  she  questions  Chiappino,  in  the  second  Act,  as 
to  the  love  he  has  professed  for  her  —  now  that  he  is  about 
to  be  elevated  to  so  high  a  state  —  we  are  not  obliged  to 
think  that  she  returns  or  even  accepts  his  love,  but  there 
is  nothing  to  prove  that  she  does  not.  Her  remark  when 
Luitolfo  appears  and  is  exonerated  is  certainly  cold-blooded 
enough  for  anyone.  There  is  no  cry  of  joy  at  meeting, 
as  there  was  no  cry  of  loss  when  he  went  away.  All  she 
says  is : 

"I  was  determined  to  justify  my  choice,  Chiappino,  —  to 
let  Luitolfo's  nature  vindicate  itself.  Henceforth  we  are  un- 
divided, whatever  be  our  fortime."  ^ 

This  is  not  love.  This  is  cold  calculating  judgment,  and 
one  is  tempted  to  think  she  would  have  followed  Chiap- 
pino's  prosperous  star,  if  he  had  continued  to  prosper  and 
had  allowed  her  to  share  his  prosperity.  Luitolfo  is  not 
to  be  unduly  congratulated  upon  having  won  such  a  woman 
for  his  wife. 

3.  The  most  fascinating  character  in  the  play  is  Ogniben, 
the  Pope's  Legate.  Accustomed  to  dealing  with  turbulent 
men  in  unsettled  times,  he  takes  this  in  the  most  serene 
and  genial  mood,  remarks  ''I  have  known  three-and- twenty 

ip.  413,  11.  112-115. 


298 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


leaders  of  revolts,"  smoothes  the  people's  temper,  and 
brings  them  round  to  a  desire  for  law  and  order.  This 
was  on  his  first  visit.^  When  he  next  comes,  he  falls  back 
on  his  usual  observation,  "I  have  seen  three-and- twenty 
leaders  of  revolts,"  ^  plays  with  Chiappino's  conceit  and 
dissembling,  and  finally,  laughing  to  himself,  lets  Chiap- 
pino  down  with  an  uncomfortable  thud,  and  goes  serenely 
back  to  Ravenna,  with  a  farewell  remark,  ''I  have  known 
Fowr-and-twenty  leaders  of  revolts."  He  can  tell  a  good 
story,  can  pour  oil  on  troubled  waters,  can  be  of  the  opinion 
of  the  man  he  is  talking  with  and  hold  his  own  opinion  still, 
can  help  a  man  make  a  fool  of  himself  in  the  sophistries  of 
that  man's  own  views,  meantime  thinking  how  all  this 
furnishes  material  for  a  sermon,  and  he  can  look  at  what 
others  take  so  seriously  largely  as  a  huge  joke. 

Altogether,  Ogniben  is  the  kind  of  man  who  makes  one 
realize  that  diplomacy  is  a  higher  stage  of  civilization  than 
war  is. 

4 .  There  remains  to  speak  of  the  character  of  Chiappino ; 
and  since  it  is  from  his  character  and  experience  that  this 
drama  gets  its  name  A  Soul's  Tragedy^  I  shall  ask  you  to 
put  down,  as  the  last  main  point  of  the  lecture, 

IV.  The  Tragedy  of  the  Soul 

The  tragedy  is  in  the  soul  of  Chiappino. 

I.  There  are  some  who  find  fault  with  the  title  of  the 
piece  and  profess  themselves  unable  to  see  where  the 
tragedy  in  Chiappino's  soul  comes  in.    They  argue  that 

*  Related  to  Luitolfo  by  one  of  the  men  in  the  crowd  a  month  later,  p.  408, 
11.  64  sqq. 

2  We  quote  in  this  paragraph  Ogniben's  saying  as  given  in  connection 
with  the  two  occasions:  i.e.  the  variant  "known"  (p.  408,  1.  80),  "seen" 
(p.  410, 1.  68). 


A   SOUUS  TRAGEDY  299 

Chiappino  is  hardened  and  embittered  when  the  play 
opens  and  that  his  action  in  claiming  the  unexpected  suc- 
cess due  to  Luitolfo  for  his  blow  cannot  have  injured  the 
soul  of  Chiappino  enough  to  constitute  ^'a  souFs  tragedy."  ^ 

2.  But  it  is  certainly  a  dull  reader  who  does  not  see  the 
tragedy  in  Chiappino's  soul.  Indeed  Chiappino  is  hardened 
and  embittered  at  the  beginning,  but  the  whole  point  of 
the  drama  is  that,  nevertheless,  all  the  remnants  of  nobleness 
in  him  and  of  loyalty  to  his  friend  spring  up  at  the  moment 
of  crisis  into  an  overwhelming  flame  of  self-sacrifice,  under 
the  impulse  of  which  he  makes  Luitolfo  flee  and  he  himself 
takes  Luitolfo's  place,  ready,  impatient,  to  declare  that 
it  was  he  who  struck  the  Provost,  —  expecting  in  all  sin- 
cerity to  pay  the  death  penalty  —  to  die  that  Luitolfo 
may  go  free  and  marry  the  girl  whom  Chiappino  loves  in 
vain.  So  is  Chiappino  redeemed,  transformed,  trans- 
figured, by  a  great  self-sacrificing  purpose. 

3.  And  the  tragedy  is  that  suddenly  finding  to  his  sur- 
prise that  it  is  the  people  who  come,  hailing  as  hero  and 
dehverer  the  man  who  struck  the  Provost,  then  Chiappino 
accepts  the  honor  as  he  had  been  prepared  to  accept  the  penalty, 
and  does  not  confess  that  Luitolfo  struck  the  blow  and 
deserves  the  praise.  So  is  the  noblest  movement  of  his 
soul  almost  in  a  moment  transformed  into  a  selfish  triumph. 
This  is  tragedy  enough. 

4.  But  it  quickly  gathers  to  itself  other  elements  of 
soul-tragedy.  Chiappino  has  been  a  sincere  holder  of 
democratic  principles,  turbulent  and  unwise  in  his  agita- 
tions, but  thoroughly  in  revolt  against  tyrannical  govern- 
ment by  a  Provost  appointed  by  Ravenna.  But  now  when 
Fortune  has  unexpectedly  turned  in  his  favor  and  the 

1  Such  essentially  is  the  criticism  of  Stopford  A.  Brooke,  The  Poetry  of 
Robert  Brottming,  New  York,  1902,  pp.  238-240. 


300  BROWNING  STUDIES 

power  and  honor  of  the  Provostship  are  offered  to  him,  he 
is  willing  to  receive  the  ofl&ce  from  the  very  same  hands  as 
his  predecessor,  —  the  hands  of  the  Pope's  Legate  from 
Ravenna.  This  also  is  soul-tragedy  —  the  abandonment 
or  compromise  of  principles  for  the  sake  of  power  and  honor. 

5.  And  there  is  still  another  element  of  soul- tragedy 
here.  It  is  plain  in  Act  I  that  Chiappino  loves  Eulalia  — 
passionately  and  sincerely,  but  unsuccessfully  —  and  that 
this  failure  adds  to  his  bitterness.  But  when  about  to  be 
elevated  to  a  position  of  power  and  honor,  he  answers  her 
exclamation  *'So,  the  love  breaks  away  too!"^  with  a 
lot  of  sophistry  which  only  half  conceals  the  fact  that  he 
is  throwing  her  over  because  of  pride  as  he  contemplates 
occupying  so  high  a  place. ^  When  Ogniben  quizzes  him 
whether  he  means  that  he  is  not  going  to  marry  Eulalia 
after  all,  Chiappino  answers : 

"I  must  have  a  woman  that  can  sympathize  with  and  appre- 
ciate me,  I  told  you."  ' 

Whether  Eulalia,  after  Luitolfo  was  gone,  encouraged 
Chiappino's  love  for  her  or  not  makes  no  difference  with 
the  fact  that  once  he  loved  her  and  now,  through  change 
in  his  fortunes,  cares  for  her  no  more.  This  sort  of  thing 
has  happened  many  thousands  of  times  in  the  generations 
gone  by  and  will  happen  many  thousands  of  times  again, 
but  it  is  no  less  an  element  of  soul-tragedy. 

6.  Sacrificing  love  because  of  his  pride,  sacrificing  prin- 
ciples for  the  sake  of  power  and  honor,  turning  the  one 
greatest  and  most  beautiful  impulse  of  his  whole  life  sud- 
denly into  selfish  gain,  —  the  tragedy  in  Chiappino's  soul 
seems  to  be  complete. 

1  P.  410,  I.  31.         2  p^  410^  11.  32-47 ;  cf.  also  his  statement  in  11.  28-30. 
'  P.  410, 11.  1 16-122;  see  also  the  discussion  as  it  continues  immediately 

0 


XV 

THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK 

Pp.  649-906 

The  time  has  come  for  us  to  take  up  the  study  of  The 
Ring  and  the  Book. 

I.  The  Sources 

Browning's  materials  for  The  Ring  and  the  Book  are  from 
four  sources  of  information : 

1.  The  "old  yellow  book." 

2.  A  manuscript  pamphlet  giving  an  account  of  the 
murder. 

3.  A  pen  and  ink  drawing  of  Count  Guido  Franceschini. 

4.  A  water-color  sketch  of  the  arms  of  the  Franceschini 
family. 

I.   The  ^^old  yellow  book.'' 

a.  In  the  beginning  of  his  great  poem,  Browning  has 
himself  furnished  a  straightforward  account  of  the  old 
yellow  book,  which  was  his  major  source.  He  has  not, 
however,  mentioned  the  year  when  he  found  it. 

There  is  in  the  city  of  Florence,  in  the  Piazza  San  Lorenzo, 
a  statue  by  Baccio  Bandinelli,^  —  a  statue  of  Giovanni  de' 
Medici,  called  Giovanni  delle  Bande  Nere^  ''John  of  the 
Black  Bands,"  ^  who  was  killed  in  battle  in  1526.  He  was 
the  father  of  Cosimo  the  Great,  who  was  the  first  one  of 
the  Dukes  of  Florence  to  bear  the  title  Grand  Duke  of 

»  "Baccio's  marble,"  p.  650, 1.  22.  2  p^  5^0^  1,  24. 

301 


302  BROWNING  STUDIES 

Tuscany.  The  statue  stands  between  the  Church  of  San 
Lorenzo  and  the  Palazzo  Riccardi,  which  was  the  palace  of 
the  famous  Medici  family.^ 

It  was  about  noon  on  a  market-day  ^  in  the  month  of 
June,^  and  the  year  must  have  been  1860,^  when  Robert 
Browning  walked  across  the  Square  toward  this  statue, 

"where  sits  and  menaces 
John  of  the  Black  Bands  with  the  upright  spear,"  ^ 

and  turning  toward  the  palace-steps,  there  — 

"precisely  on  that  palace-step 
Which,  meant  for  lounging  knaves  o'  the  Medici, 
Now  serves  re-venders  to  display  their  ware,"  ® 

he  found  on  a  stall,  in  the  midst  of  all  sorts  of  trash  —  "odds 
and  ends  of  ravage,"  he  calls  it  ^  —  an  old  yellow  book, 
which  he  immediately  bought  for  a  lira.^ 

Now,  I  am  somewhat  at  a  loss  to  understand  Robert 
Browning's  own  statement  that  a  lira  is  "  eightpence  Enghsh 
just,"  ^  for  the  lira  equals  the  franc  and  is  worth  between 
19  and  20  cents,  while  eight  pence  is  barely  16  cents.  It 
is  not  at  all  likely  that  Browning  would  make  any  such  mis- 
take. A  gentleman  told  me  some  time  ago  that,  when  he 
was  in  Italy  in  1882,  the  ItaUan  currency  was  at  a  great 
discount.  And  it  is  probable  that  fifty  years  ago,  when 
Browning  was  Hving  there,  the  rate  of  exchange  was  such 
that  the  lira  was  worth  only  eight  pence,  while  now  it  is 
worth  about  ten  pence. 

1  P.  650,  U.  22-26.  2  p.  650,  1.  21.  3  p.  650,  11.  67,  68. 

*  So  Hodell,  The  Old  Yellow  Book,  Washington,  1908,  p.  237;  see  also  p. 
337,  note  536,  where  there  is  a  personal  letter  to  Prof.  Hodell  from  Mr.  R. 
Barrett  Browning,  saying :  "The  *  yellow  book'  was  probably  picked  up  in 
June  of  i860."  So  also  Griffin  and  Minchin,  Life  of  Robert  Browning,  New 
York,  1910,  p.  228. 

6  P.  650, 11.  23,  24.  8  P.  650,  II.  27-29.  »  P.  650,  1.  30. 

8  P.  650, 11.  IS,  16,  60.  9  P.  650, 1.  16. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK 


303 


Anyhow,  he  bought  the  book,  and  buried  his  head  in  it 
as  he  pursued  his  way  homeward  to  Casa  Guidi  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Arno,  ahnost  opposite  the  famous  Pitti  Palace. 
Very  amusing  is  his  description  ^  of  how  he  walked  through 
everything  reading  this  book.  He  declares  that  by  the 
time  he  had  reached  the  stairway  that  goes  up  to  their 
apartments,  he  had  mastered  the  contents  of  the  old  yellow 
book,^  i.e.  not  necessarily  had  read  every  word  of  it,  but 
knew  what  it  was  all  about.^  This  is  no  small  tribute  to 
his  ability  as  a  scholar,  when  you  consider  the  fact  that  the 
book  is  ^'part  print,  part  manuscript,"  ^  the  ink  a  good  deal 
faded  sometimes,  and  that  it  is  in  cramped  Latin  "inter- 
filleted  with  Italian  streaks."  ^ 

That  evening,  on  the  Httle  balcony  on  the  side  of  his 
house  just  across  from  San  FeHce  Church  the  whole  story 
contained  in  the  old  yellow  book  came  to  life  in  his  imagina- 
tion ;  he  felt  the  whole  thing  become  real  again.     He  says : 

"I  fused  my  live  soul  and  that  inert  stuff."  ® 
And  again : 

"The  life  in  me  abolished  the  death  of  things, 
Deep  calling  unto  deep."  ^ 

Out  of  this  was  eventually  developed  The  Ring  and  the  Book. 
But  it  should  be  added,  which  Browning  does  not  add  but 
which  Mrs.  Orr  knew  to  be  the  case,^  that  it  was  four  years 
^  P.  650, 1.  67-p.  651, 1.  19. 

2  p.  651, 11.  20-26 ;  cf.  11.  27  sqq. 

'  P.  651, 1.  46 ;  cf.  p.  65s,  11.  50-60,  where  he  describes  himself  as  absorbed 
in  reading  the  old  yellow  book  all  the  afternoon  after  he  got  home. 

*  P.  650, 1.  62;  cf.  p.  651,  1.  26.  "There  are  in  fact  only  about  10  pages 
of  manuscript  out  of  260,"  Hodell,  The  Old  Yellow  Book,  p.  295,  note  11. 

»P.  651,  1.  44;  cf.  U.  42-45. 

« P.  655,  1.  so. 

7  P.  656,  U.  31,  32. 

8  Mrs.  Sutherland  Orr,  Life  and  Letters  of  Robert  Browning,  1  vol.  ed., 
London,  1891,  p.  261. 


^04  BROWNING  STUDIES 

before  he  definitely  began  to  shape  the  material  into  a 
poem,  and  that  during  that  time  he  had  offered  it  to  Miss 
dgle  as  material  for  a  novel.^  It  is  certainly  known  that  he 
offered  it  also  to  another  friend,  Mr.  W.  C.  Cartwright.^ 
We  find  from  a  letter  of  Browning's  written  in  September, 
1862,  that  he  is  soon  going  to  work  on  his  "Roman  murder 
story."  ^  But  it  was  some  two  years  still  before  the  writing 
vigorously  began,^  i.e.  it  was  after  he  had  seen  to  the  re- 
printing of  some  of  Mrs.  Browning's  early  writings  ^  and 
after  he  had  gotten  out  the  three-volume  edition  of  his 
collected  works  (1863)  and  had  gotten  his  new  volume 
Dramatis  Personce  (1864)  off  his  hands. 

h.  The  old  yellow  book  is  now  in  the  Hbrary  of  BaUiol 
College,  Oxford,  of  which  College  Browning  was  made 

*Mrs.  Orr,  as  above;  Hodell,  The  Old  Yellow  Book,  Washington,  1908, 
p.  237  (notice  Browning's  remark  to  Prof.  Corson,  quoted  by  Hodell); 
Griffin  and  Minchin,  Life  of  Robert  Browning,  New  York,  1910,  p.  229. 

2  Griffin  and  Minchin,  Life  of  Robert  Browning,  p.  229:  "It  is  certain 
that  he  offered  the  story  to  one  of  his  friends  in  Rome  that  winter,  Miss  Ogle, 
as  subject  for  a  novel ;  equally  certain  that  he  seriously  suggested  to  another 
friend,  Mr.  W.  C.  Cartwright,  that  he  should  write  an  account  of  it.  He 
went  so  far  as  to  say  he  would  give  him  the  book."  (As  to  Cartwright,  see 
also  p.  218  and  p.  231  note.)  Mr.  Cartwright  can  hardly  be  the  same  as 
the  poetical  contemporary  to  whom  Mrs.  Orr  (p.  261)  is  "almost  certain" 
Browning  offered  the  book. 

8  This  letter  is  published  in  Mrs.  Orr's  Life  and  Letters  of  Robert  Browning, 
as  above,  pp.  259,  260.  It  was  written  from  Biarritz,  France,  to  Miss  Isa 
Blagden,  and  is  dated  "Sept.  19,  '62."  Near  the  end  of  the  letter  (p.  260), 
Browning  says :  "  For  me,  I  have  got  on  by  having  a  great  read  at  Euripides 
— the  one  book  I  brought  with  me,  besides  attending  to  my  own  matters, 
my  new  poem  that  is  about  to  be,  and  of  which  the  whole  is  pretty  well 
in  my  head,  —  the  Roman  murder  story,  you  know." 

*  See  Griffin  and  Minchin,  pp.  230,  231.  Browning,  approaching  the  end 
of  his  task  (p.  899,  1.  5)  calls  the  book  his"four-years'-intimate,"  probably 
referring  to  the  four  years  of  constant  intimacy  with  the  book  while  writing 
the  poem  1864-68. 

*Mrs.  Browning's  early  contributions  to  The  Academy,  collected  and 
reissued  under  title  The  Christian  Greek  Poets  and  the  English  Poets,  1863. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  305 

Honorary  Fellow  in  October,  1867.  In  the  spring  of  1907, 
I  secured  permission  from  the  Librarian  for  myself  and 
several  friends  to  have  the  case  unlocked  and  to  examine 
thoroughly  the  old  yellow  book.  It  is  exactly  as  Browning 
describes  it  —  "small-quarto  size"^  (7!  by  10  inches,  one 
inch  thick,  about  260  pages),  with  "crumpled  vellum 
covers."  ^  It  contains  the  legal  docimients  relating  to 
the  trial  of  Count  Guido  Franceschini  and  four  accomplices, 
who  were  executed  on  Feb.  22,  1698,  in  the  Piazza  del 
Popolo  in  Rome,  for  murder.  It  was  the  rule  then  in  Rome 
that  pleadings  of  Counsel  for  prosecution  and  defense  must 
be  submitted  to  the  Court  in  print.^  Hence  these  docu- 
ments *  —  eleven  of  them  being  lawyers'  arguments ;  three, 
summaries  of  evidence ;  and  two  referring  to  a  subsequent 
petition  to  clear  Pompilia's  reputation.  With  these  16 
official  pamphlets  have  been  bound  up  two  unofficial 
printed  pamphlets  and  three  manuscript  letters.  The  legal 
documents  are  all  printed  to  fold  into  narrow  space,  almost 
exactly  the  size  of  our  folded  documents.  Several  of  them 
have  been  carried  so  long  in  the  pocket  that  a  heavy  black 
streak  runs  up  and  down  where  the  outside  of  the  creased 
part  rubbed  against  the  pocket.^  These  papers  were  bound 
into  a  book  by  a  Florentine  named  Cencini,^  into  whose 

ip.  650, 1.  62.  »P.  650, 1.  12. 

'P. 651,11. 47-82;  p. 652, 11. 59-64;  p. 822, 11. 15-20. 

*  They  were  printed  at  the  papal  press,  at  the  expense  of  the  government. 
Browning  says  :  "At  Rome,  in  the  Apostolic  Chamber's  type"  (p.  651, 1.  55). 
The  imprint  is:  "Romae,  Typis  Rev.  Cam.  Apost.  1698."  ("Rev.  Cam. 
Apost."  is  for  Reverendae  Cameras  Apostolicae.)  The  two  unofficial 
pamphlets  bear  no  imprint.  A  complete  table,  showing  subdivision  of  the 
pamphlets  according  to  the  nature  of  their  contents,  is  given  by  Hodell, 
The  Old  Yellow  Book,  p.  239. 

^  Something  of  this  fact  Browning  has  in  the  poem,  p.  658, 11.  31,  32. 

•P.  658,  11.  33-37;  P-  898,  1.  70-p.  899,  1.  10.  Browning  infers  that 
Cencini  saw  to  the  binding  up,  because  all  three  of  the  letters  included  are 


3o6  BROWNING  STUDIES 

hands  they  fell ;  and  in  this  form  they  were  discovered  by 
Robert  Browning  after  all  remembrance  of  the  case  had 
faded  from  the  world. 

c.  The  old  yellow  book  has  been  photographed  page  by 
page,  and  has  been  reproduced  in  photographic  facsimile, 
and  provided  with  a  translation  and  complete  critical 
apparatus  by  Prof.  Charles  W.  Hodell,  of  the  Woman's 
College  of  Baltimore,  and  issued  by  the  Carnegie  Institution 
of  Washington.^  This  reproduction,  with  the  translation, 
additional  source-material,  critical  essay,  and  notes,  makes 
a  work  of  inestimable  value.  It  is  a  thesaurus  for  the 
study  of  the  sources  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book}  Apart 
from  its  relation  to  Browning's  poem,  this  collection  of  docu- 
ments is  very  valuable  for  the  study  of  legal  procedure  in 
Italy  200  years  ago.  One  cannot  help  being  surprised  that 
the  edition  was  limited  to  600  copies,  when  he  considers 
the  labor  and  expense  of  getting  it  up.^ 

personal  letters  to  Signor  Francesco  Cencini  of  Florence,  written  on  the 
day  of  Guido's  execution,  and  the  third  letter,  the  one  by  Ugolinucci,  says 
expUcitly  that  he  is  inclosing,  most  of  the  documents.  Hodell  (p.  238) 
thinks  it  was  probably  Cencini  who  completed  the  collection  and  had  the 
papers  bound.  The  title-page  of  the  volume  is  in  handwriting;  cf.  Brown- 
ing, p.  651, 11.  17,  18. 

1  The  Old  Yellow  Book,  Source  of  Browning's  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  in 
complete  Photo-reproduction,  with  Translation,  Essay,  and  Notes,  by 
Charles  W.  Hodell,  published  by  the  Carnegie  Institution  of  Washington, 
July,  1908.  The  volume  contains  not  only  the  old  yellow  book,  but  all  the 
source-material  bearing  on  the  case. 

2  A  student  of  Browning's  poem  who  wants  just  a  glimpse  of  the  old  yellow 
book's  contents  might  read,  in  Hodell's  translation  as  above:  (i)  Fra 
Celestino's  letter,  pp.  45,  46 ;  (2)  Pompilia's  deposition,  pp.  69-73 ;  (s)  the 
peroration  of  Arcangeli's  defense  of  Count  Guido  and  his  associates,  pp.  102- 
104,  —  this  peroration  taken  bodily  into  Browning's  poem,  Bk.  VHI ;  (4)  a 
little  of  the  plea  of  Bottini,  the  public  prosecutor,  e.g.  pp.  163-166. 

'The  translations  alone,  with  an  appropriate  introduction  and  notes 
by  Prof.  Hodell,  have  been  issued  later  as  a  volume  in  Everyman's  Library. 
—  The  Old  Yellow  Book,  London  and  New  York,  no  date. 


THE  RING  AND   THE  BOOK  307 

On  the  other  hand,  we  had  looked  forward  with  keenest 
anticipations  to  the  appearing  of  this  work,  and  could  not 
help  being  somewhat  disappointed.  I  always  hesitate  to 
show  a  class  Hodell's  reproduction  of  the  old  yellow  book, 
because  it  gives  so  poor  an  idea  of  how  the  book  really  looks. 
Binding  up  his  translation,  other  source-material,  critical 
essay,  and  notes  along  with  the  reproduction  of  the  old 
pages  makes  the  present  book  over  twice  as  thick  as  the 
original,  —  in  fact,  makes  it  look  more  like  a  volume 
of  an  encyclopaedia  than  like  the  old  yellow  book.  We 
heartily  wish  that  Prof.  Hodell  had  had  an  exact  reproduc- 
tion made  of  the  old  yellow  book,  even  to  a  facsimile  of  the 
covers,  and  then  had  put  all  the  rest  of  his  matter  in  a  second 
volimie.  Apparently  he  was  not  limited  by  the  Carnegie 
Institution  in  the  matter  of  expense,^  and  he  could  readily 
have  brought  the  work  out  in  that  form.  Moreover,  the 
plates  for  some  of  the  pages  have  been  cleaned  up  a  good 
deal :  I  can  remember  pages  in  the  original  which  I  cannot 
recognize  in  the  reproduction  (I  mean  in  point  of  soilure), 
and  in  many  cases  the  type  was  surely  not  so  clear  as  it  is 
here  set  before  us.^  This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  exceedingly 
unfortunate;  for  what  we  want  in  a  photographic  repro- 
duction is  not  the  original  text  fixed  up  so  that  it  can  be 
more  easily  read,  but  rather  all  the  defects  and  dimness 
and  smirch  of  the  original,  so  as  to  show  exactly  what  it  is. 

But  such  considerations  as  these  do  not  weigh  much  in 
comparison  with  the  main  fact,  viz.  that  we  owe  an  im- 
measurable debt  of  gratitude  to  Prof.  Hodell  and  to  the 
Carnegie  Institution  for  getting  into  a  form  in  which  it  is 

1  This  can  be  fairly  inferred  from  Prof.  Hodell's  words  in  paragraph  2 
of  his  General  Preface,  p.  3. 

2  Prof.  Hodell  gives  an  explanation  in  regard  to  what  has  been  done  with 
pages  affected  by  creasing,  General  Preface,  pp.  4,  5. 


3o8  .   BROWNING  STUDIES 

available  for  general  study  the  old  yellow  book  and  the 
other  material  bearing  on  the  Franceschini  case. 

2 .   The  manuscript  pamphlet  giving  an  account  of  the  murder. 

This  pamphlet  is  not  described  by  Browning  in  the  poem, 
probably  because  he  considered  it  to  be  simply  of  sup- 
plementary value.  I  cannot  find  where  the  pamphlet  is 
now.  It  is  not  in  the  library  of  BalUol  with  the  other  things 
relating  to  The  Ring  and  the  Book} 

This  pamphlet  was  found  by  one  of  Browning's  acquaint- 
ances, in  London  among  a  lot  of  old  papers.  It  is  in  ItaUan. 
The  text  was  printed  by  the  Philobiblion  Society  in  1870. 
A  part  of  it  was  translated  by  Mrs.  Orr  in  her  Handbook} 
The  whole  pamphlet  is  now  translated  by  Prof.  Hodell 
from  the  Philobiblion  Society's  text,  and  is  included  in 
his  edition  of  The  Old  Yellow  Book  (pp.  209-213). 

This  pamphlet  is  evidently  a  few  years  later  ^  than  the 
documents  in  the  old  yellow  book,  and  is  a  more  popular 
presentation  of  the  story.  It  is  not  so  reliable  as  the  old 
yellow  book ;  it  is  a  secondary  source. 

Browning  used  considerable  additional  information  from 
this  source :  ^  e.g.  the  name  of  PompiHa's  child  Gaetano,^ 

1  Many  of  Browning's  manuscripts  are  there,  among  the  treasures  of  the 
College. 

2  Mrs.  Sutherland  Orr,  A  Handbook  to  the  Works  of  Robert  Browning, 
6th  ed.,  London  and  New  York,  1892,  pp.  83-87.  The  same  is  reprinted  by 
Cooke  in  his  Browning  Guide-Book,  Boston  and  New  York,  1893,  pp.  333- 
336 ;  and  by  Miss  Porter  and  Miss  Clarke  in  the  Camberwell  Ed.  of  Browning, 
vol.  VII,  pp.  336-340  {i.e.  in  the  Appendix  to  vol.  II  of  The  Ring  and  the 
Book).  The  part  translated  by  Mrs.  Orr  is  "somewhat  less  than  half  of 
the  pamphlet  "  (Hodell,  p.  208). 

3  So  HodeU,  p.  208. 

*  See  Hodell,  pp.  242,  243.  Hodell,  in  his  translation  of  the  pamphlet, 
shows  by  Italic  type  what  is  new  matter,  i.e.  not  in  the  old  yellow  book. 
In  his  notes,  he  shows  very  thoroughly  all  details  for  which  Browning  is 
indebted  solely  to  this  pamphlet. 

^  e.g. p.  654, 1.  73;  p.  770, 11.  II,  12;  p.  779, 11.  47,  48;  p.  780, 11.  40-47; 
p.  905, 11.  78,  79 ;  p.  906,  U.  25-27. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  309 

the  fact  that  Pompilia's  dagger- wounds  were  22  in  number/ 
the  fact  that  the  corpses  of  Pietro  and  Violante  were  laid  in 
the  Church  of  San  Lorenzo  in  Lucina  to  be  gazed  at  by  the 
multitude,^  and  many  details  of  the  pursuit,  capture,  and 
execution  of  the  murderers.^ 

3.   The  pen  and  ink  drawing  of  Count  Guido  Franceschini, 

This  drawing  was  made  on  a  loose  sheet  of  paper  shortly 
before  Guido's  execution.  He  has  on  the  clothes  in  which 
he  was  caught ;  in  these  same  clothes  he  was  executed.^ 

The  sketch  was  sent  to  Browning  by  a  stranger,  who  found 
it  in  a  bundle  of  drawings  and  the  like  which  he  bought 
in  England.^  It  is  now  in  Balliol  library  with  the  other 
things  bearing  on  The  Ring  and  the  Book.  A  memorandum, 
written  in  a  small  hand  across  the  bottom,  makes  very  plain 
what  the  picture  is.^ 

This  picture  of  Count  Guido  is  reproduced  in  HodelFs 
edition  of  The  Old  Yellow  Book;"^  also  in  the  Camberwell 
Browning.^ 

Browning  used  this  drawing  as  an  assistance  in  his  de- 
scription of  Count  Guido.  He  found  a  description  of  him 
near  the  end  ^  of  the  pamphlet  of  which  we  have  just  been 

1  Pompilia's  monologue,  p.  779,  11.  54-57. 

2  At  the  beginning  of  Half-Rome,  pp.  667,  668. 

3  "Books  IV  and  XII  make  especially  important  use  of  it"  (Hodell,  p. 

243)- 

4  This  fact  is  related  near  the  end  of  the  pamphlet  accoimt,  Hodell,  p.  213. 
Cf.  also  Browning,  p.  898, 11.  57-64. 

5  See  Hodell,  p.  298,  note  45.  Unless  my  memory  plays  me  false,  the 
drawing  is  marked:  "Presented  to  Robert  Browning  by  M.  H."  But  I 
did  not  make  a  note  of  that  when  examining  it,  and  have  not  had  opportunity 
to  see  it  since  the  question  arose  in  my  mind. 

8  This  inscription,  or  memorandimi,  can  be  easily  read  on  Hodell's  re- 
production of  the  picture. 
'Opposite  p.  274. 

8  Frontispiece  to  vol.  H  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book. 
•Hodell,  p.  213. 


310  •BROWNING  STUDIES    ^ 

speaking;  but  his  description  of  the  nose,  bush  of  beard, 
leanness,  and  pallor  of  Guido  ^  surely  gain  vividness  from 
his  having  this  drawing  before  him. 

4.  The  water-color  sketch  oj  the  arms  of  the  Franceschini 
family. 

This  sketch  was  sent  to  Browning  by  his  friend  Se3anour 
Kirkup,  an  artist.^  He  copied  it  for  Browning  from  a 
manuscript.^ 

Kirkup's  water-color  sketch  is  now  pasted  in  the  front 
of  the  old  yellow  book.  It  is  reproduced  by  Hodell  at  the 
beginning  of  his  photographic  reproduction  of  the  pages 
of  the  old  yellow  book. 

The  arms  represent  a  greyhound  tied  to  a  palm  tree  and 
straining  at  the  leash. 

"He  stands  upon  a  triple  mount  of  gold."  * 

Browning  used  the  arms  as  significant  of  the  greed  and 
violence  of  the  Franceschini  family.^ 
These  are  all  Browning  had :  ®  viz.  the  old  yellow  book,  a 

1  P.  659,  II.  43-45 ;  p.  7 15,  11.  35-37 ;  p.  783, 1.  79 ;  p.  784, 1.  47  ;  cf.  p.  898, 
11.  50-56. 

2  Griffin  and  Minchin  (pp.  203,  206)  mention  Kirkup  in  his  relations 
with  Browning.  Mrs.  Orr  (p.  219)  quotes  an  account  giving  some  informa- 
tion about  him.  Hodell  (p.  243  and  p.  299,  note  47)  calls  him  Barone  Kirkup 
{i.e.  Italian  for  Baron).  The  drawing  has  plainly  written  on  it  in  Browning's 
handwriting  "from  Seymour  Kirkup,  Florence."  Browning  in  Pacchiarotto 
(p.  1060, 1.  36)  mentions  Kirkup  by  name. 

3  See  the  memorandum  on  the  sketch  —  probably  Kirkup's  own  hand- 
writing —  telling  where  the  manuscript  is. 

*P.  892,  1.85. 

5  P.  892,  1.  82-p.  893, 1.  2 ;  p.  906,  11.  29-33. 

6  Hodell  (p.  243;  p.  324,  notes  386-389;  p.  335,  note  526)  counts  as  one 
of  the  sources  Farinacci's  Praxis  et  Theorica  Criminalis,  Lyons,  1606,  because 
from  this  Browning  got  his  details  as  to  the  vigil-torture.  Browning  cites 
Farinacci  by  name,  e.g.  p.  806,  1.  17.  In  note  526,  Hodell  translates  the 
passage  in  Farinacci  which  Browning  has  followed.  But  Browning  got  no 
detail  of  plot  nor  of  character  from  Farinacci.    He  got  simply  mformation 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  311 

separate  manuscript  pamphlet  containing  an  account  of  the 
murder,  a  pen  and  ink  drawing  of  Count  Guido  Franceschini, 
and  a  water- color  sketch  of  the  arms  of  the  Franceschini 
family.  The  old  yellow  book  was  his  chief  source.  In  Bk. 
I  and  again  in  Bk.  XII,^  Browning  assures  us  that  he  tried 
to  find  other  evidence  in  Rome  and  Tuscany,  but  was  not 
able ;  the  French  had  burned  the  records  in  Rome,  and  he 
found  in  Arezzo  only  one  entry,  —  that  as  to  an  action  in 
behalf  of  the  Franceschini  family  probably  consequent 
upon  Guido's  having  been  executed  for  murder.^ 

about  a  form  of  torture  which  was  mentioned  in  the  sources  from  which  he 
got  his  story,  Farinacci's  work  is  not,  then,  to  be  considered  a  source  for 
The  Ring  and  the  Book,  any  more  than  are  a  large  number  of  other  works 
from  which  Browning  learned  details  of  the  history  and  customs  of  the  period. 

1  P.  655,  U.  4-38;  p.  905, 1.  76-p.  906, 1.  35. 

2  There  were,  however,  two  bits  of  evidence  which  Browning  did  not  find, 
neither  of  them  court-records.  These  are  mentioned  here  in  a  note  rather 
than  in  the  regular  course  of  the  lecture,  in  order  to  avoid  confusing  them 
with  sources  which  Browning  actually  had.  These  he  never  saw ;  therefore 
they  have  no  place  in  a  discussion  of  the  sources  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book 
except  as  they  are  related  to  the  story  which  he  used.  The  two  things  which 
have  come  to  light  since  Browning  wrote  his  poem  are : 

(i)  The  record  of  Pompilia's  death,  in  the  parish-register  of  the  Church 
of  San  Larenzo  in  Lucina.  A  photograph  of  this  is  given  by  Hodell,  facing 
p.  280,  with  translation  p.  297,  note  24.  It  does  not  mention  the  manner  of 
her  death,  the  words  which  Browning  puts  in  Pompilia's  mouth  (p.  779, 
1.  29)  coinciding  with  the  fact  standing  on  the  parish-register  which'Browning 
never  saw. 

(2)  The  other  thing  is  an  account  of  the  murder  in  a  collection  of  murder 
stories  in  manuscript  form.  It  was  discovered  a  few  years  ago  in  the  Royal 
Casanatense  Library  in  Rome.  The  Franceschini  case  is  narrative  no.  10 
in  that  volume.  It  is  in  Italian.  It  is  later  than  any  of  Browning's  sources, 
—  evidently  along  in  the  eighteenth  century.  It  adds  not  much,  but  Prof. 
Griffin  calls  it  "the  best  prose  account  of  the  whole  case  which  is  known  to 
exist."  It  was  translated  by  Prof.  Griffin  and  published  in  The  Monthly 
Review,  Nov.,  1900;  same  translation  reprinted  in  Griffin  and  Minchin's 
Life  of  Browning,  Appendix  B,  i.e.  pp.  309-327.  It  is  again  translated  by 
Prof.  Hodell  from  a  transcript  made  by  a  friend  of  his,  and  is  included  in 
his  edition  of  Tlie  Old  Yellow  Bookj  pp.  217-225. 


^12  •  BROWNING  STUDIES 

II.  How  Browning  has  Treated  his  Sources 

Prof.  Charles  W.  Hodell  undoubtedly  knows  more  of  this 
than  does  anyone  else.  He  has  summed  it  up  in  his  essay 
on  "The  Making  of  a  Great  Poem"  in  his  edition  of  The 
Old  Yellow  Book,  pp.  227-291 ;  also  in  briefer  form  in  an 
article  in   The  Atlantic  Monthly,  March,  1908,  pp.  407- 

413- 

I.   Browning^ s  faithfulness  in  details  of  fact. 

In  handling  the  materials  found  in  the  old  yellow  book, 

Browning  felt  an  unusual  responsibility.     It  was  a  new 

mine.    His  great  desire  was  to  be  true  to  what  he  had  in 

hand  —  true  to  its  inner  truth  —  true  even  in  a  more  real 

sense  than  the  old  yellow  book  is,  with  its  store  of 

"pure  crude  fact 
Secreted  from  man's  life  when  hearts  beat  hard, 
And  brains,  high-blooded,  ticked  two  centuries  since."  ^ 

Accordingly,  he  has  taken  great  pains  in  a  discussion  of  the 
artist's  relation  to  his  raw  material,  —  a  discussion  carr3dng 
the  matter  out  under  the  figure  of  the  gold  and  the  alloy ,^ 
and  showing  a  sensitive  conscience  in  the  matter. 

In  Bk.  I  ^  and  again  in  Bk.  XII  ^  Browning  represents 
himself  as  tossing  the  old  yellow  book  and  catching  it  by 
the  covers.  But  some  who  have  seen  the  book  in  his  hands 
have  testified  that  he  handled  it  almost  reverently.^  No 
wonder  if  he  did,  for  he  had  read  the  whole  book  through 

ip.  650,  11.  12-14  or  63-65  (identical). 

*  The  figure  is  carried  out  in  many  places  in  Bk.  I.    Cf .  the  end  of  Bk.  XII. 

'P.  650, 11.  10-12,  61. 

<  P.  899, 1.  4. 

5  So  the  Rev.  John  W.  Chadwick,  in  an  article  "An  Eagle-Feather,"  in 
The  Christian  Register,  Jan.  19, 1888,  quoted  by  Cooke,  Browning  Guide-Book, 
PP-  337,  338;  so  Hodell,  The  Old  Yellow  Book,  p.  237,  citing  Prof.  Edward 
Dowden  on  the  point;  similarly  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  Mch..  1908,  p.  410. 


THE  RING^AND  THE  BOOK  313 

eight  times.^  "Browning  must  have  been  saturated  with 
the  book  before  he  began  writing  the  poem."  ^ 

Browning's  faithfulness  in  details  is  very  remarkable. 
Hodell  says : 

"With  the  honesty  and  mmute,  painstaking  integrity  of  a  his- 
torian, he  reorganized  his  material.  Names,  places,  dates, 
incidents,  details  of  motive,  forms  of  expression,  fragments  of 
law  are  taken  from  the  book  in  countless  profusion.  That 
strange,  grotesque  medley  of  law  and  sophistry  in  ArcangeH's 
monologue  is  in  fact  a  skillful  mosaic  of  scores  of  fragments 
taken  from  all  parts  of  the  book  and  laid  in  an  original  design 
and  cemented  by  irony  and  humor." ' 

Browning  spared  no  pains : 

"In  the  matter  of  the  chronology  of  the  tragedy,  he  is  almost 
painfully  accurate  to  the  book.  The  story  therein  is  definitely 
dated  in  most  of  its  detail,  though  these  time-references  are 
much  scattered.  It  is  evident  the  poet  has  mastered  all  these 
dates  carefxilly.  He  is  studiously  accurate  whenever  he  men- 
tions in  his  narrative  the  time  of  day,  the  days  of  the  week, 
the  seasons  of  the  year,  intervals  of  time,  or  ages  of  persons. 
The  two  opening  lines  of  PompiHa's  monologue,  which  give 
her  age,  are  accurate  to  the  day."  * 

Caponsacchi  says:  "There's  new  moon  this  eve,"  ^  and 
Hodell  tells  us  that  Browning  would  not  let  that  stand 
until  he  had  consulted  an  astronomer  and  had  had  him 
figure  back  to  find  that  there  actually  was  a  new  moon  at 

*  Mrs.  Orr,  Life  and  Letters  of  Robert  Browning,  1  vol.  ed.,  London,  1891, 
pp.  281,  282  :  "He  had  read  the  record  of  the  case,  as  he  has  been  heard  to 
say,  fully  eight  times  over  before  converting  it  into  the  substance  of  his 
poem."    Hodell,  in  both  his  articles,  appeals  to  Mrs.  Orr's  statement. 

«  Hodell,  The  Old  Yellow  Book,  p.  255. 

'  Hodell,  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  Mch.,  1908,  p.  410. 

<  Hodell,  The  Old  Yellow  Book,  p.  255. 

^  Browning,  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  p.  766, 1. 10. 


314  BROWNING  STUDIES 

that  time.^    Referring  to  the  whole  matter  of  Browning's 
accuracy  in  detail,  Hodell  says : 

"Shakespeare's  free  modification  of  the  ascertained  fact  of 
history  is  in  striking  contrast  with  this  minute  fidelity  to  the 
record  of  a  forgotten  crime."* 

Hodell  thinks  that  "the  architecture  of  the  poem,  its 
unusual  plan,  seems  to  have  been  devised  with  the  purpose 
of  the  fullest  truth-telling  concerning  the  material  before 
the  artist."  That  is,  by  letting  so  many  speak,  from 
so  many  different  points  of  view,  Browning  could  preserve 
all  the  conflicting  testimony  and  opinion  given  in  the  old 
legal  papers : 

"Now  the  plan  Browning  has  adopted  will  include  all  of 
this  contradictory  detail.  Browning  the  lover  of  truth  is  no- 
where more  manifest  than  in  the  devising  of  this  plan  for  tell- 
ing the  fullest  truth  of  the  book.  And  he  follows  it  honestly, 
even  to  the  giving  of  many  facts  and  motives  of  the  story  which 
run  counter  to  his  own  interpretation  and  his  own  sympathy  in 
the  case." ' 

Browning's  departures  from  the  details  of  the  book  are 
pointed  out  by  Hodell  in  his  critical  essay  and  his  notes. 
One  of  the  most  interesting  is  Browning's  changing  the 
date  of  the  flight  from  early  Monday  morning,  April  29, 
1697,  which  it  actually  was,  to  early  Tuesday  morning, 

1  Hodell,  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  Mch.,  1908,  p.  410;  The  Old  Yellow  Book 
pp.  255,  256;  p.  310,  note  185;  p.  337,  note  536.  In  this  last  note,  a 
personal  letter  to  Prof.  Hodell  from  Mr.  R.  Barrett  Browning  is  given, 
stating  that  he  knows  that  his  father  got  a  "distinguished  mathematician 
to  make  the  necessary  calculation"  to  find  out  about  the  moonlight  on  a 
certain  night,  evidently  referring  to  the  occasion  on  which  Pompilia  escaped 
with  Caponsacchi. 

2  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  Mch.,  1908,  p.  410. 

3  Hodell,  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  Mch.,  1908,  pp.  410,  411.  Cf.  The  Old 
Yellow  Book,  pp.  249-255,  for  a  more  detailed  discussion  of  Browning's  choice 
of  literary  form. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  315 

April  23,  in  the  preceding  week,  and,  of  course,  changing 
accordingly  the  other  dates  which  this  carries  with  it.^ 
This  was  done,  no  doubt,  for  artistic  reasons,  i.e.  to  make  the 
flight  begin  on  St.  George's  day,  consistently  with  the  use  of 
St.  George  slaying  the  dragon,  —  a  figure  caught  from  the 
painting  by  Vasari  which  is  the  altar-piece  in  Caponsacchi's 
Church  in  Arezzo,  and  a  figure  on  which  Browning  plays  so 
often  throughout  the  poem.^  Another  striking  instance  is 
this :'  In  so  important  a  matter  as  the  place  where  Pompilia 
dies,  Browning  has  taken  the  responsibiUty  upon  himself. 
He  presents  her  as  dying  in  the  hospital  of  Santa  Anna,^ 
probably  getting  his  suggestion  from  the  phrase  "of  Santa 
Anna"  connected  with  Fra  Celestino's  name.  His  letter  is 
signed:  '^Fra  Celestino  Angelo  di  S.  Anna."  Pompilia  died 
in  her  own  house.^  There  was  no  hospital  of  Santa  Anna. 
Prof.  Grifl&n  also  noticed  the  same  thing  and  calls  Brown- 
ing's hospital  '^wholly  imaginary."® 

2.   Browning^ s  contribution. 

But  with  all  Browning's  faithfulness  to  the  facts  as  he 

found  them,  his  poem  is,  even  in  essence,  a  far  different 

thing  from  the  old  yellow  book.     He  has  made  the  facts  live. 

He  says : 

"Let  this  old  woe  step  on  the  stage  again." ' 

*  See  Hodell,  p.  256 ;  p.  297,  note  28 ;  p.  310,  note  184. 

2  P.  657,  U.  7-12;  p.  766,  11.  40-43;  P-  775,  11-  4-16;  p.  795,  11.  60-65; 
p.  829,  11.  2-8. 

3  Hodell,  p.  321,  note  351.  In  this  note,  Hodell  is  mistaken  in  supposing 
that  the  line  "In  the  good  house  that  helps  the  poor  to  die"  (p.  663, 1.  14) 
means  the  Convent  of  the  Convertites.  It  means  the  hospital.  Browning 
is  consistent. 

*  P.  663, 11.  5-33 ;  p.  686, 11.  1-40 ;  cf.  the  whole  atmosphere  of  Pompilia's 
own  monologue.    The  name  of  the  hospital  is  given  in  p.  686, 1.  3. 

^  HodeU,  p.  297,  note  24;  p.  321,  note  351. 

*  In  a  note  to  his  translation  of  the  account  of  the  murder  discovered  in 
the  Casanatense  Library,  Griffin  and  Minchin,  Life  of  Brownings  p.  321. 

'  P.  660, 1.  4. 


3i6  BROWNING  STUDIES 

And  Browning  has  elevated,  transmuted,  transfigured 
the  whole  story.  His  originality  is  plain  to  the  student  in 
two  general  directions,  —  viz.  (i)  the  freedom  he  has  used 
in  the  preparation  of  the  monologues  and  (2)  his  elabora- 
tion of  the  characters. 

The  monologues  in  their  present  form  are,  of  course, 
Browning's  work.  Some  of  them,  e.g.  Half-Rome,  The 
Other  Half -Rome,  and  the  Pope's  soliloquy,  are  made 
"out  of  whole  cloth"  and  have  no  counterpart  in  the  old 
yellow  book.  Others,  such  as  Caponsacchi's  and  Pom- 
pilia's,  have  gathered  from  the  book  and  from  Browning's 
free  invention.  Still  others,  such  as  the  pleas  of  the 
lawyers  Arcangeli  and  Bottini,  are  dependent  on  the  book 
to  a  remarkable  degree,  yet  the  matter  used  has  been  com- 
pletely worked  over  and  rewoven  into  a  new  tissue. 

In  the  elaboration  of  the  characters,  Browning  has  in- 
fused more  of  his  own  soul  than  in  anything  else.  Hodell 
in  both  his  articles  gives  considerable  space  ^  to  a  comparison 
of  the  characters  as  set  forth  by  Browning  and  by  the  old 
yellow  book. 

Count  Guido  in  Browning's  poem  is  essentially  the  real 
Guido  of  the  historical  case,  —  a  compound  of  cunning, 
greed,"  and  brutality.  Yet,  starting  with  such  excellent 
material  for  a  villain.  Browning  has  sublimated  Guido's 
subtlety  and  cruelty  and  conceit  and  self-sophistication. 
There  is  infused  into  him  much  of  Browning's  knowledge 
of  the  darkest  recesses  of  human  nature. 

In  the  character  of  Caponsacchi,  Browning's  creative 
power  has  worked  much  more  freely,  until  in  Erowning's 
heroic  and  chivalrous  young  priest  we  hardly  recognize 
the   Canon   Caponsacchi   of   the   old   yellow   book.     His 

» Hodell,  The  Old  Yellow  Book,  pp.  274-290;  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  Mch^ 
1908,  pp.  411-413. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  317 

affidavit  when  he  had  been  placed  on  trial  for  elopement  is 
included  in  the  book  and  shows  him  to  be  a  resolute  man ; 
and  when  overtaken  with  PompiHa  at  Castelnuovo  he  had 
faced  Guido  with  ringing  words  and  so  bold  a  front  that  the 
husband  had  quailed.  But  all  the  deUcacy  of  feeling,  heat 
of  indignation,  sublimity  of  moral  ideals,  and  depth  of 
religious  insight  which  complete  the  character  of  Browning's 
Caponsacchi  are  borrowed  from  the  personality  of  Robert 
Browning. 

Of  Pompilia,  Browning  is  said  to  have  remarked:  "She 
is  just  as  I  found  her  in  the  book."  But  the  creative  power 
of  his  genius  has  worked  almost  as  extensively  on  her  as 
on  Caponsacchi.  True,  the  suggestion  for  the  Pompilia 
of  The  Ring  and  the  Boo'k  is  found  in  the  letter  of  Brother 
Celestino,  who  confessed  her  on  her  death-bed,  and  in 
the  accompanying  affidavits  of  ten  other  eye-witnesses. 
But  elsewhere  in  the  evidence  and  argimients  in  the 
old  yellow  book,  she  is  either  vilified  by  the  defenders 
of  her  husband  or  spoken  of  patronizingly  and  pityingly 
as  ''poor  child"  by  those  who  were  on  her  side.  But 
Browning  has  made  Pompilia  his  ideal  of  womanhood 
and  motherhood,  —  his  highest  embodiment  of  patience, 
courage,  and  faith.  It  is  very  easy  to  see  that  he 
has  read  into  her  much  of  his  idealized  thought  of  his  own 
wife:  i.e.  starting  with  the  best  in  the  sources,  he  has, 
perhaps  not  reahzing  how  thoroughly,  re-created  Pompilia 
in  the  image  of  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning. 

The  greatest  and  most  significant  addition  which  Brown- 
ing has  introduced  into  the  characters  of  Caponsacchi  and 
Pompilia  is  their  love  for  each  other,  which  becomes  in  the 
poem  such  a  tremendous  dynamic  and  yet  is  so  controlled. 
This  infusion,  into  the  story,  of  a  splendid  passion  is  the 
highest  humanizing  touch  Browning  has  given  in  making 
the  story  live  again. 


3i8 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


The  clue  to  Browning's  elaboration  of  the  characters, 
the  incentive  which  led  him  on,  was  the  search  for  adequate 
motives.  Beyond  the  conflicting  motives  alleged  in  the  old 
yellow  book,  Browning  went  into  a  psychological  study  of 
the  materials,  to  form  a  conception  of  adequate  motives 
in  Guido,  Caponsacchi,  and  Pompilia  to  account  for  the 
facts  lying  in  such  a  mass  in  the  legal  documents.  Working 
with  a  wonderful  sincerity  and  desire  to  be  true  to  the 
facts,  and  yet  with  an  insight  into  human  nature  and  a 
passionate  sympathy  with  human  nature  which  he  could 
not  violate,  Browning  has  reanimated  the  facts  in  the  midst 
of  a  pulsating  tide  of  human  life. 

The  title  The  Ring  and  the  Book  is  unfortunate  and  gives 
no  idea  of  the  contents  of  the  poem.  It  is  caught  simply 
from  a  simile,^  that  just  as  a  goldsmith  mingles  with  pure 
gold  an  alloy  to  make  it  hard  enough  to  bear  the  tools 
and  be  shaped  into  a  ring  and  engraved  or  embossed,  so 
Browning  mixes  with  the  crude  facts  found  in  the  old 
yellow  book  his  own  imagination  and  shapes  the  whole 
mass  into  this  poem.  It  would  have  been  much  better,  if 
he  had  chosen  a  title  somehow  related  to  the  story  itself. 

What  Browning  has  accompKshed  cannot  be  summed  up 
in  more  appropriate  words  than  those  of  Hodell : 

"Marshaling  the  material  of  the  book  into  an  entirely  new 
order,  he  interpenetrated  it  with  what  lay  wisest  and  deepest  in 
his  own  nature,  creating  therefrom  the  most  human  and  most 
significant  longer  poem  of  the  nineteenth  century."  2 

*  This  is  the  simile  elaborated  throughout  Bk.  I,  in  discussing  the  artist's 
relation  to  his  raw  material.  It  is  caught  up  again  at  the  very  end  of  Bk. 
XII. 

2  Hodell,  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  Mch.,  1908,  p.  413. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  319 

III.  The  Plot  in  Browning's  Poem 

It  will  be  well  to  get  the  story  before  us  as  it  stands  in 
Browning's  poem.  But  it  stands  there  told  from  many 
points  of  view.  The  various  presentations  of  the  story, 
however,  range  themselves  in  two  antagonistic  lines,  viz. 
those  favoring  Count  Guido  Franceschini  and  those  favoring 
PompiKa  and  Caponsacchi.  These  two  views  part  com- 
pany often  in  their  statement  of  facts,  and  as  often  in  their 
interpretation  of  facts  stated  alike  by  both  sides.^  We 
must  tell  the  story  according  to  one  side  or  the  other  — 
we  cannot  tell  it  from  both  sides  at  the  same  time.  Accord- 
ingly the  story  is  outHned  here  from  the  standpoint  of 
Pompilia  and  Caponsacchi.  You  should  bear  in  mind  how 
differently  many  of  these  things  are  presented  by  Guido 
and  those  who  favor  him. 

The  story  is  as  tangled  as  a  modem  novel. 

There  was,  in  the  city  of  Arezzo  in  Tuscany,  a  family 

1  There  is  a  large  number  of  instances  of  the  same  fact's  being  presented 
with  interpretations  diametrically  opposite.    Two  examples : 

(i)  Pompilia's  seizing  Guido's  sword  to  attack  him  at  Castelnuovo : 

(a)  Inteqireted  by  Half-Rome  in  the  vein  of  ridicule  and  the  mock- 
heroic  (p.  679,  11.  15-34) ;  jocosely  treated  by  Bottini  (p.  832,  11.  36-73); 
interpreted  by  Guido  as  an  indication  of  her  brazen  impudence  (p.  740, 11.  58- 

75). 

(6)  Interpreted  by  Caponsacchi  as  utmost  nobility  of  soul  (p.  772,  11.  3- 

21,  69-75) ;  by  Pompilia  as  desperate  courage  bom  of  utter  truth  (p.  799, 

11.  4-74) ;  by  the  Pope  as  obedience  to  the  highest  instincts  (p.  853, 11. 17-47). 
(2)  Guido's  use  of  Caponsacchi's  name  at  the  Comparini's  door : 
(o)  Interpreted  by  Half-Rome  as  a  generous  act,  the  final  test  which 

proved  Pompilia's  guilt  (p.  683, 1.  57-p.  684, 1.  19) ;  and  by  Count  Guido  in 

the  same  way  (p.  747,  U.  9-32). 

(b)  Interpreted  by  The  Other  Half-Rome  as  having  conclusively  proved 
Pompilia's  innocence  (p.  704, 1.  68-p.  705, 1.  19) ;  and  by  Pompilia  as  basest 
deception  and  treachery  (p.  779, 1.  76-p.  780, 1.  4;  p.  782, 11.  31,  32 ;  p.  801, 
11.  67-75) ;  and  felt  by  Browning  to  be  a  regular  satanic  trick  (p.  654,  11. 
57-67;  p.  657, 11.  27-51). 


320  BROWNING  STUDIES 

named  Franceschini,  having  three  sons  and  several  daugh- 
ters, —  an  ancient  but  impoverished  house.  Two  sons, 
Paul  and  Girolamo,  became  priests.  But  the  eldest  son, 
Guido,  became  attached  to  a  cardinal's  suite  in  Rome  and 
took  only  minor  orders  in  the  Church,  —  orders  which 
would  permit  him  to  marry.  He  did  not  become  a  priest,  his 
duty  being,  as  the  eldest  son,  to  marry  and  continue  the 
family  line.  He  failed  in  his  efforts  for  preferment  and 
was  46  years  of  age  when  he  decided  to  give  it  up  and 
marry  and  return  to  the  family  palace  in  Arezzo.  His 
brother  Paul  helped  him  to  find  a  wife. 

Now,  there  was  in  Rome  a  family  named  Comparini, 
of  the  middle  class,  having  certain  property  so  entailed 
that  they  could  not  use  it  up,  but  it  would  go  to  their 
daughter  and  her  children.  The  father  was  Pietro,  the 
mother  Violante,  and  the  daughter  Pompilia.  Moreover, 
they  had  social  ambitions  for  their  daughter  —  this  was 
especially  true  of  the  mother.  And  finally,  without  the 
father's  consent,  Pompilia  was,  through  her  mother's 
scheming,  married  to  Count  Guido  Franceschini.  When 
Pietro  found  it  out,  he  stormed,  but  presently  decided  that 
there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  make  the  best  of  it ;  and 
finally  he  and  his  wife  went  to  live  with  their  daughter  and 
Count  Guido  in  Tuscany. 

But  Guido  turned  out  to  be  a  tyrant  and  worse,  and  made 
life  so  disagreeable  for  Pietro  and  Violante  that  they  fled 
and  returned  to  Rome.  Then,  to  spite  Guido,  they  went 
before  a  court  and  declared  that  Pompilia  was  not  their 
child  at  all,  but  an  illegitimate  child  whom  Violante  had 
received  from  her  dying  mother.  Violante  had  beforehand 
secretly  made  arrangements  to  receive  this  child,  had  told 
Pietro  that  he  might  expect  a  child  of  his  own  begetting^ 
and  had  actually  palmed  off  this  child  on  her  husband  as 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  321 

her  own.^  Violante  had  kept  the  secret  so  well  that  Pietro 
himself  never  knew  the  truth  about  it  until  now  when 
Violante  told  him  and  they  made  it  pubhc  before  the  court 
and  instituted  a  suit  for  the  recovery  of  the  dowry.  They 
did  not  see  that  this  declaration  was  the  very  worst  thing 
they  could  do  for  Pompilia.  She  was  in  no  way  responsible 
for  her  origin.  Left  alone  in  Count  Guido's  palace,  he 
turned  against  her  with  hate  and  loathing,  and  subjected 
her  to  all  torture  of  soul  as  well  as  violence  of  body.  His 
relatives  in  the  house  combined  with  him  in  persecuting 
his  wife.  For  some  of  this,  such  as  the  doings  of  his  brother 
Girolamo,  Guido  was  probably  not  responsible,  but  his 
own  purposed  cruelty  was  ingenious  and  constant.  Pom- 
pilia appealed  to  the  Governor  and  to  the  Archbishop,  but 
neither  of  them  would  do  anything  to  help  her  because 
of  Guido's  high  position.  She  made  several  other  efforts 
to  secure  assistance,  but  they  were  of  no  avail. 

Now  there  was  also  in  Arezzo  a  young  priest,  Giuseppe 
Caponsacchi,  Canon  of  the  Church  of  Santa  Maria  della 
Pieve,  —  also  of  noble  birth.     Guido  plotted  to  bring  his 

^That  Violante  could  practice  such  a  deception  successfully  seems  at 
first  thought  almost  incredible.  But  the  fact  is  that  such  cases  are  not  very 
unusual.  This  statement  is  made  on  such  high  authority  as  that  of  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Hastings  H.  Hart.  Dr.  Hart  was  for  ten  years  Superintendent 
of  the  Illinois  Children's  Home  and  Aid  Society,  Chicago,  and  is  now  Director 
of  the  Department  of  Child-Helping  of  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation,  New 
York.  He  has  thus  had  unusual  opportimities  for  information  in  such 
matters.  When  he  was  in  Oberlin  in  March,  1908,  to  deliver  a  lecture,  he 
told  Pres.  King  of  several  such  cases:  one  in  Chicago  of  which  he  knew 
personally  —  the  husband  believed  it  was  his  wife's  own  child  but  the 
woman's  deception  was  accidentally  discovered  and  she  was  compelled  by 
Dr.  Hart  to  acknowledge  it ;  another  case  related  to  him  by  a  physician ; 
and  another,  not  in  Chicago,  given  him  by  good  authority  —  this  case  being 
that  of  a  woman  who  deceived  her  husband  in  this  way  three  times  within 
a  few  years.  Dr.  Hart  has  given  me  the  same  facts  in  a  letter.  The  names 
of  Pres.  King  and  Dr.  Hart  are  used  in  this  connection  with  their  permission. 


222  BROWNING  STUDIES 

wife  and  this  young  priest  together  ever  after  these  two 
had  noticed  each  other  once  in  a  theatre.  Guido's  idea 
evidently  was  to  use  Caponsacchi  as  a  means  of  torturing 
Pompilia,  and  to  make  out  such  a  case  against  her  that  he 
might  bring  against  her  an  accusation  of  adultery.  He  had 
married  her  only  for  money,  and  he  thought  that,  if  he  could 
bring  against  her  a  well-supported  charge  of  adultery,  he 
could  get  legal  separation  from  her  and  still  legally  hold  her 
property.  Guido  sent  the  priest  letters  of  love  purporting 
to  be  from  Pompilia  —  who  could  neither  read  nor  write, 
as  was  undoubtedly  the  case  with  the  majority  of  women 
in  Italy  two  hundred  years  ago  ^  —  and  the  letters  which 
Caponsacchi  sent  back  declining  the  overtures  were  never 
read  to  Pompilia,  but  in  their  place  fervent  love-letters 
written  by  Guido  but  purporting  to  come  from  the  priest. 
Guido's  agent  in  carrying  this  on  was  a  waiting-maid 
named  Margherita. 

This  thing  went  on  for  some  time,  till  somehow  Capon- 
sacchi did  decide  to  come  to  Pompilia's  window.  To  his 
surprise  he  found  her  there,  not  Count  Guido  as  he  had 
expected.  She  told  him  her  straits,  and  after  much  hesi- 
tation he  arranged  to  take  her  away.  They  started  before 
daybreak  and  drove  all  that  day  and  the  following  night 
and  the  second  day,  and  reached  Castelnuovo,  fifteen  miles 
from  Rome.  There  she  fainted  away  and  had  to  be  left 
in  the  inn.  There  they  were  overtaken  by  Count  Guido, 
and  were  presently  brought  before  the  Roman  court.  The 
judges,  of  course,  thought  it  was  only  a  young  priest's 

*  As  late  as  1901,  60.8  %  of  the  female  population  of  Italy  were  illiterate. 
See  Encydopadia  Britannica,  nth  ed.,  191 1,  vol.  XV,  p.  16,  in  the  article 
Italy.  In  the  old  yellow  book,  Guido's  lawyers  insist  that  Pompilia  did 
know  how  to  write.  She  may  have  learned  during  her  bitter  experience  in 
Arezzo.    See  Hodell,  p.  313,  note  235 ;  p.  314,  notes  247-249,  251. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  323 

escapade,  this  running  away  with  another  man's  wife, 
and  treated  the  matter  as  a  good  deal  of  a  joke.  But  they 
must  do  something  to  satisfy  Count  Guido  and  uphold 
the  dignity  of  the  law.  So  they  imposed  a  light  sentence 
on  each.  Pompiha  was  sent  to  a  convent  of  penitents 
in  Rome,^  and  after  some  months  was  transferred  to  the 
home  of  her  foster-parents,  where  she  was  under  bond  to 
stay  as  a  prisoner.  Caponsacchi  was  relegated  to  Civlta 
Vecchia,  where  he  was  not  a  prisoner  but  a  sort  of  exile 
detained  within  the  limits  of  that  town.  Count  Guido 
went  home  to  Arezzo. 

So  things  stood  till  a  week  before  Christmas,  i.e.  eight 
months  after  the  flight.  Then  PompiHa's  child  was  bom. 
The  child  was  a  boy  and  was  christened  Gaetano,  and  was 
then  taken  away  and  hidden  with  his  nurse  in  some  place 
in  the  country,  for  fear  some  harm  might  come  to  him  from 
Count  Guido.  The  birth  of  this  child  could,  of  course, 
bear  two  interpretations,  and  Guido  at  once  put  the  worst 
interpretation  possible  upon  it.  He  summoned  four  men 
from  his  country  estate  and  proceeded  with  them  to  Rome. 
They  came  on  the  evening  of  the  second  day  of  January, 
1698,  to  the  villa  where  Pompilia  was  Uving  with  Pietro 
and  Violante.  Guido  knocked  on  the  door,  and  in  reply 
to  a  voice  within  asking  ^'Who  is  there?"  he  answered 
"  Caponsacchi."    When  the  door  was  opened,  Guido  and 

*  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  nunnery  to  which  Pompilia  was  sent  was  the  one 
commonly  called  the  Scdette,  in  the  Via  della  Lungara.  Browning  {e.g.  p. 
681,  11.  14-21,  48-51;  p.  721,  11.  77-79)  has  confused  this  institution  with 
the  Convent  of  St.  Mary  Magdalene  of  the  Convertites  in  the  Corso,  which 
brought  suit  in  Jan.,  1698,  for  Pompilia's  estate.  But  the  suit  of  this  latter 
convent  was  not  at  all  based  on  her  having  been  in  their  house,  but  on  the 
privilege  granted  to  them  by  Pope  Leo  X  at  the  founding  of  their  house 
in  1520,  —  the  privilege  of  having,  within  limitations,  the  property  of  any 
woman  of  unchaste  life  dying  in  Rome.  See  Hodell,  p.  316,  note  276; 
p.  323,  note  364.    Their  petition  in  the  case  of  Pompilia  was  refused. 


324 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


some  of  his  men  rushed  in  and  killed  Pietro  and  Violante 
and  wounded  Pompilia  so  that  she  died  in  the  hospital/ 
but  lived  four  days  —  miraculously  long  it  was  thought  by 
those  whose  sympathies  were  on  her  side.  Officers  of  the 
law  pursued  Count  Guido  and  his  four  accomplices  and 
arrested  them  and  brought  them  back  to  Rome  and  placed 
them  on  trial.  All  these  speeches  which  Browning  has 
given  us  are  made  in  connection  with  this  trial.  Notice 
that  there  were  two  trials  of  importance,  besides  minor 
lawsuits.  One  important  trial  is  that  in  which  Caponsacchi 
and  Pompiha  were  tried  for  elopement  and  received  the 
light  sentence  of  which  I  have  already  spoken.  That  trial 
is  referred  to  only  incidentally  in  these  speeches.  The 
other  trial  of  importance  is  the  trial  of  Count  Guido  and 
his  accomplices  for  murder,  at  which  trial  Caponsacchi  is 
only  a  witness,  to  tell  what  he  may  know  as  to  why  there 
should  be  any  such  murder.  This  is  the  trial  in  connection 
with  which  Browning  presents  the  monologues  in  The  Ring 
and  the  Book.  If  you  will  only  remember  this  fact  of  the 
two  trials,  you  will  avoid  confusion. 

The  court  found  Count  Guido  and  his  accomplices  guilty 
and  sentenced  them  to  death.  Guido  appealed  to  the  Pope, 
as  he  had  a  right  to  do,  having  taken  minor  orders  in  the 
Church.  The  Pope  confirmed  the  verdict  of  the  court, 
and  the  criminals  were  executed  on  the  following  day, 
Feb.  22,  1698.  Count  Guido,  because  of  his  rank,  was 
beheaded  and  his  accomplices  were  hanged. 

Already  within  a  month  after  Pompilia's  death,  the  Con- 
vent of  St.  Mary  Magdalene  of  the  Convertites  had  brought 

^This  is  stated,  of  course,  according  to  the  story  as  presented  in  The 
Ring  and  the  Book.  The  fact  is,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out,  that  in 
having  Pompilia  die  in  the  hospital  of  Santa  Anna,  Browning  invents  the 
hospital. 


THE  RING  AND   THE  BOOK  325 

suit  claiming  her  property  on  the  ground  that  she  had  been 
guilty  of  adultery  and  that  this  convent  had  been  granted 
the  privilege  of  having  the  property  of  such  women  dying  in 
Rome.  But  in  September  of  the  same  year,  the  court  ren- 
dered its  decree,  refusing  to  grant  this  petition  and  officially 
clearing  PompiKa's  reputation  and  restoring  her  good  name. 

IV.  Something  of  the  Setting  of  the  Story 

1.  The  Italy  is  the  Italy  of  something  over  two  hundred 
years  ago.  Modern  united  Italy,  of  course,  dates  from 
1870.  Italy  in  1698  was  a  country  broken  up  into  separate 
states,  quite  independent  of  one  another  and  much  given 
to  war  with  one  another.  Some  like  Venice  and  Genoa 
were  repubhcs.  Modena  and  Parma  were  each  under  a 
duke.  Tuscany  had  its  grand  duke.  Spanish  influence 
was  strong  in  many  parts  of  the  country,  and  Lombardy 
and  the  kingdom  of  Naples  were  entirely  under  Spanish 
rule.^  A  wide  irregular  strip  running  northeast  diagonally 
across  central  Italy  was  papal  territory:  i.e.  this  was  in 
the  days  of  the  temporal  power  of  the  Church,  and  the  Pope 
was  king  of  central  Italy.  This  disintegrated  condition  of 
Italy  explains  why  Guido  and  Caponsacchi  are  called  ''aUens" 
in  Rome. 2  They  were  aliens  there ;  they  were  subjects  of 
the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany,  and  were  aliens  in  Rome  al- 
most as  much  as  if  they  had  been  Frenchmen  or  Germans. 

2.  The  Pope  to  whom  the  case  was  appealed  was  Antonio 
Pignatelli^  of  Naples,  who  became  Pope  Innocent  XII 
in  1 691  and  died  in  the  year  1700.  His  tomb  is  in  St. 
Peter's  on  the  right  aisle  just  before  you  reach  the  chapel 

1  A  few  years  later  (Peace  of  Utrecht,  17 13),  these  passed  to  Austria. 

2  e.g.  p.  772, 11.  42,  43. 

^  Browning  sometimes  refers  to  the  Pope  by  this  name,  e.g.  p.  653,  I.40; 
p.  845, 11. 13, 14 ;  but  more  often  by  his  oflScial  name. 


326 


Drowning  studies 


of  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  Browning  has  much  idealized 
him,  and  has  combined  with  his  character  the  character 
of  Innocent  XI  ^  (Pope  1676-1689). 

3.  Central  Italy  being  papal  territory,  rehgious  and  civil 
government  coincide  to  a  large  extent,  and  all  the  judges 
in  the  court  are  high  ecclesiastics.  This  it  is  well  to  re- 
member in  order  to  understand  the  way  the  court  is  some- 
times addressed ;   e.g.  Guido  says : 

"should  it  please  the  reverend  Court," ' 
and  Caponsacchi  says: 

"Yes,  I  am  one  of  your  body  and  a  priest."  ' 

4.  The  Church  of  San  Lorenzo  in  Lucina  was  Pompilia's 
church.  Here  she  was  baptized,  here  she  was  married, 
and  here  she  was  buried.  There  are  several  churches  of 
San  Lorenzo  (St.  Lawrence)  in  Rome,  and  some  phrase  is 
added  to  distinguish  them.  San  Lorenzo  in  Lucina  is  in 
the  little  square  of  San  Lorenzo  opening  off  the  Cor  so. 
The  church  is  just  as  Browning  describes  it,  except  that  he 
has  misinterpreted  one  feature.  He  makes  Pompilia  speak 
of  "the  marble  lion"  — 

"With  half  his  body  rushing  from  the  wall. 
Eating  the  figure  of  a  prostrate  man  — 
(To  the  right,  it  is,  of  entry  by  the  door)."  * 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  are  two  of  these  lions,  one  on 
each  side  of  the  door.  They  are  much  worn  away  and 
belong  to  the  oldest  part  of  the  church.  It  is  now  under- 
stood that,  in  each  case,  the  lion  is  guarding  a  man,  symboliz- 

^  See  Cooke,  Browning  Guide-Book,  Boston,  1893,  pp.  338,  339;  but  cf. 
Hodell,  p.  270  and  p.  300,  note  62.  Hodell  does  not  believe  that  the  charac- 
teristics added  are  from  Pope  Innocent  XI. 

2  P.  726, 1.  74;  cf.  p.  727, 1.  80-p.  728, 1.  I. 

»  P.  755,  1.  24.  4  p.  779,  U.  39-45. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  327 

ing  the  Church's  guarding  power.^  It  is  interesting  to 
note  that  there  is  a  letter  in  existence  in  the  postscript 
to  which  Browning  asks  a  friend  to  send  him  all  details 
about  this  church.^  So  Browning's  description  of  things 
connected  with  this  church  is  at  second  hand. 

5.  Arezzo,  the  native  town  of  Count  Guido  and  of  Capon- 
sacchi,  is  a  city  of  16,000  inhabitants,  in  Tuscany,  142  miles 
from  Rome  and  54  miles  from  Florence  by  the  railroad. 
It  is  beautifully  situated  among  the  hills.  It  has  well 
preserved  walls  and  narrow  streets.  It  is  the  ancient 
Arretium,  and  its  inhabitants  are  called  Aretines.^  The 
town  figures  in  history  from  about  300  B.C.  There  are 
many  valuable  associations  connected  with  the  place 
besides  the  interest  which  attaches  to  The  Ring  and  the 
Book.  This  was  the  birthplace  of  Maecenas  the  friend  and 
patron  of  Virgil  and  Horace.  Here  the  house  where 
Petrarch  was  bom  in  1304  has  a  large  brass  tablet  on  its 
front.  This  was  the  native  town  of  Vasari,  the  great 
architect  and  painter  and  writer  of  a  history  of  painting. 
Some  of  his  best  work  is  here.  The  square  is  called  the 
Piazza  Vasari,  and  on  the  north  side  of  it  is  the  colonnade 
(more  accurately  called  the  loggia)  built  by  him  in  1573. 
The  old  Church  of  San  Francesco  has  rare  frescoes  which 
were  in  process  of  restoration  when  I  was  there. 

6.  Browning's  references  to  things  in  Arezzo  are  made 
with  great  accuracy. 

a.  The  Church  of  Santa  Maria  della  Pieve,  of  which 
Caponsacchi  was   Canon,   stands  in   the   Corso  Vittorio 

^  This  explanation  of  the  significance  of  these  figures  I  owe  to  Prof. 
Charles  B.  Wright,  who  gave  it  to  me  in  conversation. 

2  The  letter  was  written  to  Frederic  Leighton,  Oct.  17,  1864.  This  post- 
script is  printed  in  Mrs.  Orr's  Life  and  Letters  of  Robert  Browning,  i  vol.  ed., 
London,  1891,  p.  284 ;  new  ed.,  Boston,  1908,  p.  273. 

'  Often  spoken  of  so  in  Browning's  poem :  e.g.  p.  659, 1.  41 ;  p.  755, 1.  54. 


328  '     BROWNING  STUDIES 

Emanuele,  and  the  street  is  so  narrow  that  it  is  impossible 
to  take  a  photograph  of  the  whole  church.  But  the  front 
can  be  taken  from  the  Corso  and  the  back  from  the  Piazza 
Vasari.  The  church  occupies  the  site  of  a  church  dating 
from  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  century,  but  much  of 
the  present  building  dates  from  1216.  The  interior  was 
well  restored  in  1863-65.  There  is  a  fine  campanile,  or 
bell-tower,  five  stories  high.  But  the  church  is  best  known 
for  its  facade,  consisting  of  three  colonnades,  one  above 
the  other,  containing  all  together  58  carved  columns. 
Caponsacchi  refers  to  this : 

"I'  the  grey  of  dawn  it  was  I  found  myself 
Facing  the  pillared  front  o'  the  Pieve  —  mine, 
My  church."  ^ 

The  church  has  a  very  pleasing  interior.  Vasari's  picture 
of  St.  George  slaying  the  dragon  is  over  the  altar. 

b.  The  Duomo,  or  Cathedral,  is  a  good  example  of  Italian 
Gothic,  but  its  exterior  is  rather  plain  and  uninteresting. 
It  was  begun  in  the  year  1277,  and  the  interior  was  not 
completed  until  1511.  The  facade  was  begun  in  1880, 
and  is  not  yet  finished.  The  Cathedral  has  a  fine  situation, 
overlooking  the  country.  In  the  Cathedral  of  Arezzo,  you 
will  still  see  the  ancient  custom  of  having  one  big  book  on  a 
stand  in  the  middle  of  the  choir,  while  all  the  clergy  stand 
around  it  and  sing  the  vespers  from  the  same  book.  The 
finest  thing  about  the  Cathedral  is  its  long  narrow  windows, 
rich  with  stained  glass.     Caponsacchi  says : 

"  'Tis  more  amusing  to  go  pace  at  eve 
I'  the  Duomo,  —  watch  the  day's  last  gleam  outside 
Turn,  as  into  a  skirt  of  God's  own  robe, 
Those  lancet-windows'  jewelled  miracle."  * 

1  P.  764, 11.  65-67. 

2  P.  758,  II.  25-28,  —  rather  extreme  language,  but  the  setting  sun  coming 
through  these  windows  would  probably  justify  it. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  329 

c.  San  Clemente,  the  gate  through  which  PompiUa 
escaped,  is  at  the  north  of  the  town : 

"Take  San  Clemente,  there's  no  other  gate 
Unguarded  at  the  hour."  ^ 

I  took  a  special  walk  up  there  to  examine  it.  It  is  now 
guarded  by  a  soldier,  at  least  in  the  daytime.  It  consists 
of  a  very  heavy  wooden  gate,  and  through  this  a  small  gate 
for  foot-passengers,  —  this  small  gate  being  about  the  size 
of  an  ordinary  door.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  readily  one 
might  escape  when  the  large  gate  was  shut,  if  it  was  found 
unguarded.  The  present  gate  looks  ancient  and  weather- 
beaten,  but  it  is  not  probable  that  is  the  same  wood  which 
was  there  two  hundred  years  ago. 

d,  I  could  get  no  trace  of  a  Madonna  by  Rafael  in  the 
Cathedral  of  Arezzo.  Several  times  Browning  refers  to  a 
Rafael  Madonna  on  the  high  altar  of  this  Cathedral  .^ 
Whether  there  has  been  one  there  and  it  has  been  removed, 
or  whether  Browning  felt  at  liberty  to  introduce  one  for 
literary  purposes,  I  do  not  know.  But  he  has  been  so 
accurate  in  all  other  details  that  I  am  inclined  to  think  there 
may  have  been  a  Rafael  here  which  has  been  taken  away. 

7.  Also  I  visited  Fiesole,  on  the  hills  northeast  of 
Florence.  Fiesole  is  the  place  where  the  Caponsacchi 
family  originated.  Capo-in-Sacco,  or  Caponsacco,  the  pro- 
genitor of  this  family,  is  referred  to  not  alone  by  Brown- 
ing,^ but  also  by  Dante  in  the  sixteenth  canto  of  the  Paradiso 
of  his  Divine  Comedy  ^ 

1  p.  766, 11. 14, 15. 

*  P.  757, 11.  43-49 ;  p.  761, 11.  32-35 ;  and  in  several  other  places  in  Capon- 
sacchi's  speech. 

'  e.g.  p.  755, 11-  31-41. 

*  "Already  had  Caponsacco  descended  into  the  market  place  down  from 
Fiesole."  —  Translation  by  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  5th  ed.,  Boston,  1898, 
p.  108. 


XVI 

THE     RING     AND     THE     BOOK     (CONCLUDED) 

Continuing  our  study  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  we  turn 
now  to 

V.  An  Examination  of  Browning's  Poem 

The  Ring  and  the  Book  was  published  in  four  volumes,  one 
month  apart, —  Nov.,  1868;  Dec,  1868;  Jan.,  1869; 
and  Feb.,  1869.^  Browning  was  then  56  years  of  age.  Mrs. 
Browning  had  been  dead  seven  years  when  the  poem  ap- 
peared, though  parts  of  it  began  to  be  written  within  three 
or  four  years  of  her  death.  It  is  to  her  that  the  invocation 
is  addressed;  i.e.,  instead  of  invoking  any  of  the  muses, 
Browning  addresses  to  the  soul  of  Mrs.  Browning  an  ex- 
quisite invocation :  ^ 

"O  lyric  Love,  half  angel  and  half  bird 
And  all  a  wonder  and  a  wild  desire,  — 
Hail  then,  and  hearken  from  the  realms  of  help ! " 

And  he  begs  . 

"That  still,  despite  the  distance  and  the  dark," 

there  may  be 

"some  interchange 
Of  grace,  some  splendour  once  thy  very  thought, 
Some  benediction  anciently  thy  smile." 

*  The  Boston  Public  Library  has  the  four  volumes  of  this  first  edition. 
Prof.  Louis  F.  Miskovsky  of  Oberlin  College  has  a  set  in  very  fine  condition, 
which  he  kindly  loaned  me  several  times. 

'P.  666,  1.  66-p.  667,  1.  II.  The  words  quoted  above  are  from  p.  666, 
11.  66,  67,  77 ;  p.  667, 11,  1-4.  One  of  my  friends  has  suggested  that  the  use 
of  the  word  "anciently"  is  peculiarly  significant,  —  "anciently"  because 
it  has  seemed  so  long  to  Browning  since  his  wife  died. 

330 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  33 1 

As  we  have  already  noted,  in  our  discussion  of  Browning's 
treatment  of  his  sources,  it  is  easy  to  see  many  charac- 
teristics of  Mrs.  Browning  in  his  conception  of  the  character 
and  appearance  of  Pompilia. 

The  Ring  and  tJte  Book  is  the  supreme  work  of  Browning's 
mature  genius,  and  it  exhibits  well  his  excellences  and  his 
defects. 

I .   Browning's  Defects  Plain  in  the  Poem, 

Of  the  unfortimate  features  of  Browning's  writings,  we 
have  already  spoken  in  the  introduction  to  these  studies. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  go  over  that  ground  again  at  this 
time.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  all  those  features  are  found 
in  abundance  in  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  The  poem  is 
packed  with  Browning's  vast  knowledge  from  beginning 
to  end,  much  of  it  cropping  out  in  obscure  allusions  and 
reminiscences ;  to  read  the  poem  understandingly  is  a  sort 
of  university  education.  The  tendency  to  go  on  and  on  is 
given  free  rein,  resulting  in  a  work  of  forbidding  length. 
The  play  of  intellectual  cleverness  is  freely  indulged,  and 
in  this  Browning  is  a  past-master.  The  temptation  to  go 
into  the  by-ways  of  philosophic  arguing  is  not  sufficiently 
resisted.  The  revelling  in  Latin  and  Italian  is  unrestrained ; 
it  should  be  said,  however,  that  this  is  justifiable,  if  not 
absolutely  necessary,  when  we  consider  the  subject  and  the 
atmosphere.  Frequently  the  sentences  are  very  long  and 
the  imagery  elaborate.  The  poem  affords  a  host  of  illus- 
trations of  the  fact  that  Browning  cannot  easily  let  go  of  a 
figure  of  speech  when  he  has  once  taken  hold  of  it.  He 
can  say  as  much  in  a  few  words  as  any  man  that  ever  wrote. 
He  can  draw  a  picture  with  as  few  strokes  as  any  man  that 
ever  drew;  as  e.g.  when  he  speaks  of  "the  sudden  bloody 
splendour  poured"  over  the  inn  at  Castelnuovo/  or  of 
»P.  656, 11. 22-24. 


332  .   BROWNING  STUDIES 

Pompilia's  gliding  into  the  carriage  outside  the  gate  of 

Arezzo : 

"so  a  cloud 
Gathers  the  moon  up."  ^ 

But  often  in  handling  a  figure  of  speech  he  meanders  on  and 
on,  with  many  intricacies  of  phrase.  It  is  noticeable  that, 
when  he  comes  to  the  more  passionate  and  emotional  parts, 
where  he  himself  is  deeply  moved,  then  his  style  is  simple 
and  direct. 

2.  Excellence  of  Browning's  Plan. 

Yet  in  spite  of  all  the  defects  which  any  of  the  critics 
may  charge  up  against  it;  The  Ring  and  the  Book  is  a  great 
and  wonderful  work.  It  is  so  vast  and  so  various  that,  as 
was  well  said  many  years  ago,^  it  seems  as  if  it  could  hardly 
be  the  work  of  one  man.  It  frequently  impresses  you  as 
if  it  were  the  composite  work  of  many  great  minds.  It  has 
been  fitly  compared  to  a  great  Gothic  cathedral.^ 

And  it  does  hold  the  reader's  attention,  and  this  is  no 
small  feat  when  the  proposition  is  to  hear  the  same  story 
told  ten  or  a  dozen  times.  Browning  throws  away  all  the 
arts  of  the  story-teller.  He  does  not  reserve  anything 
to  stimulate  the  reader's  interest.  He  tells  at  the  beginning 
what  the  plot  all  is.  He  tells  the  story  two  or  three  times 
in  that  opening  book,  tells  what  he  is  going  to  do,  under 
what  circumstances  each  character  is  going  to  speak,  what 
point  of  view  each  is  going  to  have,  even  how  they  are 
going  to  act.  He  leaves  nothing  to  be  expected.  But  the 
incidents  in  the  story  are  many  of  them  capable  of  such 
different  interpretations  that  you  are  eager  to  see  how  it 
looks  from  different  points  of  view. 

1  P.  767, 11. 1, 2. 

2  By  James  Thomson,  in  an  article  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  vol. 
CCLI,  pp.  682-695,  Dec,  1881. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK 


333 


Moreover,  the  art  in  the  arrangement  is  good,  and  we 
appreciate  the  intenser  parts  as  we  could  not  except  for 
the  approach  to  them  by  which  Browning  leads  us.  He 
comes  from  the  circumference  to  the  centre,  —  first  smoke 
and  then  flame,  as  he  says.^  We  hear,  first,  gossip:  of 
course,  such  a  tragedy,  involving  a  man  of  high  rank  like 
Count  Guido,  would  set  all  Rome  to  talking.  So  we  hear 
"Half-Rome'^  speaking,  i.e.  a  man  who  represents  that 
part  of  the  populace  who  are  partial  to  Count  Guido  and 
justify  him  for  killing  an  adulterous  wife;  then  *'The 
Other  Half-Rome '^  defending  Pompilia  and  believing  her 
to  be  pure  and  a  martyr  and  Count  Guido  a  monster; 
then  '^Tertium  Quid"  (a  third  something),  a  superior  in- 
dividual who  claims  that  he  is  impartial,  tries  to  be  on  both 
sides  of  the  fence  at  once,  and  naturally  arrives  at  no 
result.  Then  we  hear  Count  Guido  speaking  for  himself 
after  torture;  then  Caponsacchi  testifying  before  the 
judges ;  then  Pompilia  speaking  from  her  cot  in  the  hospital ; 
then  the  principal  lawyers,  Arcangeli  and  Bottini,  each  one 
in  process  of  getting  up  his  plea  and  each  esteeming  this 
great  case  an  opportunity  to  make  professional  reputation 
and  to  discomfit  his  opponent ;  then  the  Pope  meditating 
by  himself  over  "these  dismalest  of  documents,"  as  he 
calls  them,^  —  the  very  papers  which  we  handle  in  the 
old  yellow  book ;  then  Guido  again,  a  condemned  man, 
waiting  for  his  execution,  talking  to  his  confessors  in  his  cell 
with  quite  another  tone  from  that  with  which  he  spoke  in 
the  court,  now  begging  and  pleading  for  life,  calling  on 
every  power  that  he  thinks  can  help  him,  even  his  murdered 
wife: 

"  Abate,  —  Cardinal,  —  Christ,  —  Maria,  —  God,  .  .  . 
Pompilia,  will  you  let  them  murder  me?"  ' 

1  P.  66i,  11.  41-45.  2  P.  843, 1.  14.  '  P.  896,  U.  17,  18. 


334  BROWNING  STUDIES 

This  is  a  great  stroke  of  art,  to  make  Guido  in  his  despair 
call  for  help  on  the  wife  whom  he  had  persecuted  and 
murdered.  Then  we  have  letters,  fragments  of  speeches, 
and  so  on,  telling  of  the  execution,  giving  us  echoes  of  the 
tragedy,  growing  fainter  as  interest  in  the  events  and 
memory  of  them  slowly  fades  away.  You  see  the  whole 
thing  is  very  like  human  life,  like  the  way  of  the  world. 
It  is  a  masterly  arrangement. 

3.  Browning^ s  Imagination. 

And  I  don't  think  we  have  given  Browning  credit  for  his 
magnificent  imagination.  To  make  all  this  live  is  no  small 
task.  And  usually  the  atmosphere  is  exceedingly  well  pre- 
served. The  light  gossipy  tone  of  the  first  three  speakers, 
yet  each  with  a  tone  quite  different  from  the  others,  is  very 
consistent;  and  incidentally  things  are  thrown  in  unob- 
trusively which  show  us  exactly  where  and  under  what  con- 
ditions each  is  speaking.^  When  Count  Guido  speaks 
before  the  court,  he  two  or  three  times  refers  to  the  pain 
in  his  shoulder,^  but  even  when  he  does  not  directly  refer 
to  it,  we  have  the  feeling  that  this  man  has  been  injured 
on  the  rack.  In  Caponsacchi's  speech  you  are  always 
conscious  that  it  is  a  priest  speaking.  This  is  well  sustained 
in  the  earlier  part  of  the  speech  by  references^  to  his  study 
of  the  Summa  Theologies  (Sum,  or  Principal  Matter,  of 

1  In  Bk.  I,  when  Browning  explains  his  plan  (p.  660,  1.  i8-p.  666, 1.  22), 
he  tells  pretty  carefully  the  circumstances  under  which  each  character  will 
speak.  The  remark  above  in  the  lecture  refers  to  indications  woven  into 
each  speaker's  own  monologue, 

2  P.  727,  11.  2,  3;  p.  728,  11.  22-26;  p.  747,  1.  74-p.  748,  1.  2.  The  first 
few  minutes  of  Guido's  speech  (p.  726,  1.  74-p.  728,  1.  26)  have  many  refer- 
ences to  the  torture  he  has  endured,  and  some  marks  of  pain  besides  those 
just  given;  see  e.g.  p.  726,  11.  82,  83.  Cf.  other  indications  of  injuries, 
p.  744, 11.  I,  2 ;  p.  751, 11.  80,  81 ;  p.  752, 11.  40-4S-  This  last  shows  that  his 
hand  has  been  hurt  in  the  torture. 

»  P.  758, 11.  49,  SO,  66 ;  p.  765, 11.  33,  34. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  335 

Theology)  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  which  was  and  is  still 
the  standard  authority  on  theology  in  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church.  In  only  one  instance  are  there  any  grounds  for 
saying  that  Browning  has  failed  to  create  and  keep  an 
atmosphere  consistent  with  the  situation,  and  that  is  in  the 
case  of  the  Pope.  Of  course,  the  Pope  falls  to  meditating 
on  the  larger  aspect  of  things  as  suggested  by  this  crime, 
and  into  the  mouth  of  this  aged  Pope  200  years  ago  Brown- 
ing has  put  a  large  amount  of  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  philosophizing.  But  it  should  be  remembered 
that  the  great  questions  of  life  are  the  same  in  every  genera- 
tion, and  that  a  Pope  such  as  Browning  has  conceived 
Innocent  XII  would  very  naturally  fall  into  some  such 
meditations  as  these.  It  may  be  that  the  thoughts  are 
shaped  and  colored  by  too  modern  a  spirit,  but  the  problems 
discussed  are  not  pecuHar  to  the  nineteenth  century. 
At  least  it  should  not  be  too  hastily  argued  that  in  the 
Pope's  monologue  Browning  has  failed  to  *' sense  the  situa- 
tion" and  has  in  this  one  case  fallen  below  the  achievement 
of  a  real  and  consistent  atmosphere. 

4.  Browning^ s  Psychological  Acuteness, 

And  for  subtle  understanding  of  human  nature  in  its 
depth  and  height  and  length  and  breadth,  we  have  no  equal 
to  Browning  in  English,  unless  it  is  the  great  Shakespeare. 
And  it  seems  to  me  that  Browning  often  handles  human 
nature  with  more  discernment  and  delicacy  than  Shake- 
speare himself. 

Browning  is  so  subtle  that  many  miss  the  point.  This 
matter  between  Caponsacchi  and  Pompilia  would  be  only 
grossly  interpreted  now,  as  such  things  have  always  been. 
It  is  perfectly  evident  that,  according  to  Browning's  idea 
of  it,  there  was  no  one  in  the  wide  world  to  Pompilia  like 
Caponsacchi,  no  one  in  the  wide  world  to  him  like  that 


33^ 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


woman.  Yet  there  was  no  sin  between  these  two.  Capon- 
sacchi  dared  not  move  in  the  matter  until  he  had  conquered 
himself.  However  passionately  he  loved  her,  he  held 
himself  in  control.  He  did  not  believe  in  "the  divine  right 
of  passion,"  as  Richard  Wagner  did. 

"  I  never  touched  her  with  my  finger-tip 
Except  to  carry  her  to  the  couch  that  eve, 
Against  my  heart,  beneath  my  head  bowed  low, 
As  we  priests  carry  the  paten.'*  ^ 

There  was  no  surrender  to  passion.  And  yet  those  two 
loved  each  other  with  such  a  love  that,  if  love  can  save  a 
soul,  such  souls  as  theirs  are  in  the  heaven  of  heavens.^ 

Let  us  examine,  just  as  an  illustration  of  the  best  in 
The  Ring  and  the  Book,  Caponsacchi's  own  account  of 
himself.  Let  me  call  attention  to  Browning's  knowledge 
of  subtle  psychological-  principles  as  shown  in  that  single 
speech. 

a.  Caponsacchi  was  a  light  and  frivolous  priest.  He 
admits  it.  He  took  his  vows  under  an  easy  interpretation 
of  them,^  and  spent  his  time  between  the  duties  and  offices 
of  the  Church  on  the  one  hand  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
dancing  attendance  upon  ladies  and  making  himself  gener- 
ally popular  and  seeking  preferment.'* 

h.  But  at  once  when  Pompilia  came  into  his  life,  every- 
thing was  changed.  The  making  of  light  poems  seemed 
a  foolish  occupation.^    The  Church  suddenly  came  to  have 

*  Caponsacchi,  p.  773,  11,  9-12. 

'This  refers,  of  course,  to  Caponsacchi  and  Pompilia  as  pictured  in 
Browning's  poem,  not  as  they  stand  in  the  old  yellow  book  and  other  sources. 
I  find  I  have  swung  into  the  phrase  used  of  H61oise  by  Thomas  Davidson 
in  his  article  on  Ab^lard  in  Lib.  of  World's  Best  Lit.,  vol.  I,  p.  24. 

'  P.  755, 1.  7I-P-  756, 1.  62.  *  P.  756, 1.  62-p.  757, 1-  35- 

6  P.  758,  11.  18-33. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  337 

new  meaning.^  Life  looked  all  dififerent.^  Even  before  he 
had  ever  spoken  to  her,  he  was  a  changed  man.  This 
stirring  of  a  man's  whole  nature  under  such  circumstances 
is  exactly  true  to  Ufe. 

c.  By  a  keen  insight  Caponsacchi  knew  that  the  letters 
which  were  brought  to  him  were  not  PompiUa's  work  but 
Guido's,^  and  egged  him  on  and  played  with  him  by  dropping 
now  and  then  a  half-committal  word  in  his  replies.'*  The 
temptation  to  do  this,  and  to  bring  Guido  to  a  ^'thrash- 
ing" at  last,^  is  entirely  true  to  human  nature. 

d.  The  struggle  which  Caponsacchi  went  through  before 
he  decided  to  take  Pompiha  away  is  a  great  study  in  the 
development  of  a  soul.  He  was  staking  everything  and 
would  lose  everything.  He  knew  that.no  one  would  give 
him  credit  for  right  motives  in  running  away  with  Count 
Guido's  wife.  His  whole  future  was  at  stake.  Yet  here 
was  the  service  of  God,  and  he  knew  he  could  never  have 
any  respect  for  himself  before  God  if  he  failed  to  help  this 

woman  in  her  need : 

"  how  true, 
I  am  a  priest !    I  see  the  function  here."  • 

This  moral  struggle  through  which  he  passed  between  the 
time  when  she  first  spoke  to  him  and  the  hour  when  they 
fled  is  something  great.  He  actually  persuaded  himself 
not  to  do  it;  he  thought  he  had  decided  that  he  would  not 
help  her  escape.^    He  honestly  went  to  her  window  the 

1  P.  758, 11.  30-40.    See  how  this  grew  upon  him  as  things  went  on,  p.  764, 
1.  65-p.  76s,  1.  29. 
»  P.  758,  11.  18-68. 
3  P.  759,1.  17-p.  760,1.  25. 
*  P.  759,  11.  20,  21 ;  p.  760,  11.  9-1 1.     Cf.  p.  759,  U.  72,  73. 

6  P.  760, 11.  S9H56 ;  p.  761 ,  11.  1 1-28. 

«  P.  765, 11.  25,  26 ;  cf.  11.  37,  38 ;  also  the  whole  passage,  11.  18-56. 

7  P.  765,  H.  30-62. 


338  Drowning  studies 

second  time  to  comfort  her  and  advise  her  not  to  despair.^ 
But  when  she  appealed  to  him  again,  threw  herself  on  his 
help  in  her  desperate  straits,^  all  he  had  decided  to  do  and 
say  went  to  the  winds.  He  recognized  here  the  challenge  of 
duty,  —  a  challenge  which  could  not  be  refused  without 
making  him  a  coward  before  God,  and  he  told  her  how  to 
meet  him  and  escape.^  How  true  to  psychology  is  every 
step  of  this  process,  and  most  true  the  reversal  of  his  de- 
cision at  the  end,  —  especially  true  because,  against  his 
feelings,  his  judgment  had  compelled  him  to  make  that 
decision. 

e.  Many  indications  of  the  struggle  are  graphically 
given:  e.g. 

(i)  Before  Pompilia  has  spoken  to  him,  Caponsacchi 
sits  thinking  how  his  life  has  shaken  under  him,  and  keenly 
he  realizes  the  gulf  between  aspiration  and  actual  achieve- 
ment in  human  Kfe,  as  he  had  not  realized  it  before.* 

(2)  He  tries  to  read  Aquinas'  Summa  Theologice,  but  her 
smile  keeps  glowing  out  of  its  pages.^ 

(3)  Later  he  tries  again  to  tie  down  his  attention  to  this 
book,  and  finds  he  can  see  only  her  name  across  the  theo- 
logical page.^' 

(4)  Nothing  could  tell  more  vividly  of  his  struggle  than 
his  pacing  the  city  all  night  after  their  first  interview,  unable 
to  think  connectedly  on  this  matter  but  knowing  that  he  is 
at  a  crisis  and  is  passing  into  a  different  state  never  to  be 

1  P.  76s,  11.  63-70. 

2  p.  765, 1.  71-p.  766, 1.  5. 

'  P.  766,  11.  6-16.  The  fact  that  Caponsacchi  answers  so  readily  with  a 
plan  of  escape  does  not  argue  against  the  statement  that  he  had  decided  not 
to  help  Pompilia.  Of  course,  he  had  thought  about  what  plan  might  be  best 
if  one  were  to  help  her,  and  hence  the  details  were  ready  in  his  mind. 

*  P.  758, 11.  49-56;  see  also  11.  57-65. 

«*  P.  758,  U.  66-68.  •  P.  76s,  U.  33,  34. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK 


339 


the  same  man  he  was;^  finding  himself  "i'  the  grey  of 
dawn"  facing  his  own  church,  with  a  painful  realization 
of  how  it  has  *'  changed  tone "  as  it  speaks  to  him  now  ;^  and 
next  day  sitting  dazed  in  his  room  and  letting  time  run  over 
him.^ 

/.  Again,  Browning's  knowledge  of  psychological  states 
and  processes  is  shown  to  great  advantage  in  connection 
with  the  flight.     Notice  some  of  the  details ; 

(i)  When  the  flight  has  been  decided  upon,  Caponsacchi 
is  so  startled  next  morning  by  his  servant's  innocent  remark 
about  something  he  should  remember  for  evening : 

"*Sir,  this  eve  — 
Do  you  forget  ? '    I  started.     '  How  forget  ? 
What  is  it  you  know?'"  * 

(2)  Note  the  sharp  contrast  between  this  throbbing 
undertaking  of  which  Caponsacchi 's  mind  is  full  and  the 
perfunctory  services  of  the  Church  of  which  the  servant 
reminds  him  with  such  seriousness.^ 

(3)  See  Browning's  understanding  of  how  the  usual 
routine  of  the  day  gives  way  before  a  greater  purpose  which 
makes  the  day  full  of  meaning  and  to  be  remembered ;  the 
accustomed  routine  seems  insignificant.^  We  have  all 
experienced  this  to  some  extent. 

(4)  Notice  the  description  of  the  strain  under  which 
Caponsacchi  was  at  the  hour  of  the  escape : 

"  With  a  tune  in  the  ears,  low  leading  up  to  loud, 
A  light  in  the  eyes,  faint  that  would  soon  be  flare."  ^ 

(5)  Very  subtle  and  entirely  scientific  is  the  fact  that  he 
imagined  Pompilia  coming  to  the  carriage  in  white  when 

1  P.  764,  U.  28-64.       « P.  764, 1-  6s-p.  765, 1- 17.        '  P.  76s,  U-  30-35. 
*  P.  766,  u.  38-40.     ^  P.  766,  u.  40-53-  •  P.  766,  U.  53-59. 

'  p.  766,  U.  60-66. 


340  BROWNING  STUDIES 

she  actually  appeared  in  black. ^  You  see,  she  had  worn 
white  whenever  he  had  seen  her  before,  and  he  always 
thought  of  her  in  white.  Now  when  she  comes  in  black, 
he  skilfully  turns  the  matter  and  says  the  white  which  he 
thought  he  saw  coming  was  her  soul  shining  through  her 
body. 

(6)  The  tension  under  which  he  was  as  the  flight  began, 
with  the  vague  effect  of  the  carriage  rolling  through  the 
darkness  and  taking  him  away  from  his  former  Hfe,  is 
wonderfully  portrayed  in  the  words  ^'the  rush  and  roll  of 
the  abyss."  ^ 

g.   After  the  flight  has  begun : 

(i)  Such  a  change  has  intervened  that  at  daylight  that 
very  morning  it  seems  years  since  they  left  Arezzo.     Pom- 

pilia  asks : 

"How  long  since  we  both  left 
Arezzo?" 

and  Caponsacchi  answers : 

"Years  —  and  certain  hours  beside."  ' 

(2)  He  does  not  like  it  when  she  asks  him  what  woman  he 
was  accustomed  to  help,  because  that  reminds  him  too  much 
of  his  former  frivolous  Hfe.^ 

(3)  He  does  not  like  it  when  she  asks  him  to  read  the 
service  at  the  angelus}  That  cuts  two  ways :  it  reminds 
him  of  his  former  perfunctory  observance  of  canonical 
hours,  and  it  also  shows  him  she  is  thinking  of  him  only  as 
a  priest. 

(4)  But  when  she  calls  him  *' friend,"  he  is  so  taken  up 

^  P.  766,  11.  66-73,  The  explanation  given  above  I  owe  to  a  friend  who 
pointed  it  out  in  conversation. 

2  P.  767, 1.  28.  3P.  767, 11.  60,  61. 

*  P  768,  11.  3-9.  »  P  768,  11.  41-49- 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  341 

with  that  fact  that  he  cannot  remember  what  he  replied 
at  that  point  in  the  conversation.^ 

(5)  A  striking  insight  into  human  nature  is  shown  in 
the  fact  that  this  man  who  has  mumbled  hundreds  of  prayers 
says,  in  an  hour  of  real  stress  and  exceeding  need : 

"Why,  in  my  whole  life  I  have  never  prayed ! "  ^ 

h.  And  so  I  could  go  on  step  by  step  through  Capon- 
sacchi's  speech  and  point  out  Browning's  psychological 
acuteness.  It  is  on  every  page.  It  comes  out  strikingly 
in  every  phase  of  the  experience  at  Castelnuovo,^  where 
Guido  overtook  the  runaways.  It  comes  out  in  Capon- 
sacchi's  never  forgiving  himself  that  he  didn't  kill  Guido 
when  he  had  the  chance,*  and  in  his  feeling  how  ridiculous 
it  was  for  Guido  to  claim  such  a  woman  for  his  wife.^  It 
comes  out  in  Caponsacchi's  begging  the  court  to  let  him  see 
Pompilia  again,  just  as  a  priest  to  minister  to  her  as  she  is 
dying,^  and  in  the  reverence  for  her  which  his  love. has 
given  him,  —  a  reverence  so  great  that  the  chamber  where 
she  slept  at  Castelnuovo  was  to  him  a  chapel  ^  and  he  carried 
her  thither  with  all  the  awe  with  which  a  devout  believer 
in  transubstantiation  carries  the  paten  on  which  rests  the 
very  body  of  Christ.^  It  comes  out  marvellously  in  his 
understanding  that,  although  the  facts  related  are  the  same 
which  were  told  six  months  ago,  the  color  is  changed  since 
this  murder : 

"  the  sky  is  different, 
Eclipse  in  the  air  now."  ^ 

*  P.  769, 1.  41-p.  770, 1.  7.     Especially  p.  769, 1.  41 ;  p.  770, 11.  1-7. 
« P.  768,  1.  74.  3  P.  770,  1-  iQ-P-  772,  1.  60. 

*  P.  771,  U.  22-36;  p.  776,  U.  43-52.  ^  P.  771,  U.  37-44. 

*  p.  772, 1.  69-p.  773, 1.  8.  '  P.  771,  U.  63,  64. 

8  P.  773, 11.  9-12.  »  P.  773, 11.  31-40,  especially  11.  38-40, 


342  BROWNING  STUDIES 

The  same  psychological  insight  comes  out  in  the  end  in 
Caponsacchi's  zealous  effort  to  argue  that  his  leaving  her 
for  half  an  hour  by  a  post-house  on  the  road  proves  that 
they  were  not  in  love,^  and  again  in  the  way  he  handles 
his  cherished  recollections  of  her  brow 

"bent  somewhat  with  an  invisible  crown 
Of  martyr  and  saint  " 

her  dark  eyes,  and  her  Ups 

"  Careful  for  a  whole  world  of  sin  and  pain."  * 

i.  But  I  must  not  pause  over  these  things.  There  are 
scores  of  instances  in  this  one  speech.  Mention  of  one  more 
must  suffice  now.  Nothing  shows  Browning's  understand- 
ing of  human  nature  better  than  the  last  words  of  Capon- 
sacchi.^  It  is  a  wonderful  device  to  which  Browning  has 
resorted.  Caponsacchi  has  told  his  story.  He  persuades 
the  court  and  himself  that  it  is  all  over,  that  he  and  Pom- 
pilia  are  "mere  strangers  now,"  that  it  was  a  matter  of  his 
profession  as  a  priest,  and  that  he  is  just  like  a  student  who 
reads  in  his  Plutarch's  Lives  of  Illustrious  Men  and  imagines 
that  he  would  do  what  they  did,  then  rouses  himself  to  his 
bare  soHtary  room:  even  so  Caponsacchi  claims  to  pass 
content  from  this  experience  with  Pompilia.  He  has  per- 
suaded the  court,  and  has  undoubtedly  persuaded  himself, 
that  this  is  so.  Then  suddenly  he  loses  hold  of  himself 
and  utters  one  great  bitter  cry : 

"  O  great,  just,  good  God !    Miserable  me ! "  * 

Those  two  words  "Miserable  me"  are  more  eloquent  than 
all  he  has  said  in  the  last  few  minutes  about  the  experience's 
being  closed.    They  show  the  irreparable  desolation  of  his 

1  P.  777, 11.  45-58 ;  cf.  p.  769, 11.  20-32.  2  P.  777,  11.  63-75. 

» P.  778,  1.  6s-p.  779,  1.  18.  *  P.  779,  1.  18. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  343 

soul.  This  whole  process,  with  the  sudden  outbreak  at  the 
end  —  the  protest  of  his  heart  against  his  intellect,  is  en- 
tirely in  accordance  with  the  facts  of  psychology. 

j.  Now,  I  don't  mean  to  say  that  any  of  these  instances, 
or  all  of  them  together,  prove  Browning's  knowledge  of 
the  technical  science  of  psychology.  But  they  do  prove 
that  he  studied  human  nature  as  keenly  as  the  technical 
psychologist  does,  and  quite  as  successfully.  Many  of 
these  speeches  are  almost  as  rich  in  psychological  study  as 
is  Caponsacchi's.^  It  will  be  an  inexhaustible  source  of 
interest  to  anyone  to  look  for  this  element  in  The  Ring  and 
the  Book.  The  wonder  at  Browning's  understanding  of 
human  nature  constantly  grows  upon  me. 

5.  The  Passion  which  Browning  has  Infused. 

And  for  splendid  passion,  we  have  no  one  superior  to 
Browning  in  English  literature.  There  is  not  a  weak 
character  in  the  poem.  Good  or  bad,  these  characters  are 
every  one  of  them  alive  to  their  finger-tips,  with  "plenty 
of  red  corpuscles  in  their  blood."  This  is  why  The  Ring 
and  the  Book,  while  it  is  so  tragic,  is  never  depressing. 

6.  The  Beauty  of  the  Poem. 

It  should  be  added  that  the  poem  has  a  splendid  wealth  of 
color,  not  only  in  characters  and  plot,  but  in  metaphor  and 
simile.  It  is  full  of  dramatic  interest,  and  abounds  in 
passages  of  exquisite  poetry  and  word-pictures  drawn  with 
rare  skill  and  delicacy.  Its  lines  are  often  so  freighted  with 
great  thoughts  that  they  are  quite  unforgettable.  Indeed, 
it  would  be  hard  to  call  to  mind  another  work  in  which 
beauty  of  thought  and  beauty  of  expression  are  so  lavished 
as  in  The  Ring  and  the  Book. 

*The  psj'chological  study  in  Pompilia's  monologue  is  perhaps  keener 
and  more  subtle  than  in  Caponsacchi's,  and  it  is  all  the  more  remarkable 
in  that  it  is  a  man's  study  of  a  woman's  psychology. 


344 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


I.  have  time  to  point  out  only  a  few  illustrations  out  of 
the  hundreds  equally  good. 

a.  In  Bk.  I,  the  introductory  book : 

(i)  How  the  tragic  occurrence  had  dropped  out  of  all 
memory  until  Browning  found  the  old  yellow  book,  —  the 
whole  situation  pictured  in  one  line : 

"Oblivion  gone  home  with  her  harvesting."  ^ 

(2)  The  singing  in  San  Felice  Church  in  June,  recognized 
year  after  year,  —  the  vague  impression  given  one  outside 
which  would  be  spoiled  by  putting  in  accurate  information : 

"Chanting  a  chant  made  for  midsummer  nights  — 
I  know  not  what  particular  praise  of  God, 
It  always  came  and  went  with  June."  ^ 

(3)  The  description  of  Caponsacchi  before  the  judges : 

"As  he  speaks  rapidly,  angrily,  speech  that  smites : 
And  they  keep  silence,  bear  blow  after  blow, 
Because  the  seeming-solitary  man, 
Speaking  for  God,  may  have  an  audience  too, 
Invisible,  no  discreet  judge  provokes."  ^ 

b.  In  Guidons  speech  in  his  own  defense : 

(i)  His  description  of  the  condition  to  which  his  wife^s 
behavior  had  brought  him : 

"I,  —  chin-deep  in  a  marsh  of  misery, 
Struggling  to  extricate  my  name  and  fame 
And  fortune  from  the  marsh  would  drown  them  all, 
My  face  the  sole  unstrangled  part  of  me,  — 
I  must  have  this  new  gad-fly  in  that  face."  * 

(2)  Guido's  account  of  his  feelings  at  that  Christmas- time 
before  he  killed  his  wife : 

"Festive  bells  —  everywhere  the  Feast  o'  the  Babe. 

******* 

»P.  655,1.  2.  2P.  655,  U.  66-68. 

3  P.  662, 1.  8i-p.  663, 1.  3-  *  P.  738,  U.  17-21. 


TEE  RING  AND   THE  BOOK  345 

I  stopped  my  ears  even  to  the  inner  call 

Of  the  dread  duty,  only  heard  the  song 

'  Peace  upon  earth/  saw  nothing  but  the  face 

O'  the  Holy  Infant  and  the  halo  there 

Able  to  cover  yet  another  face 

Behind  it,  Satan's  which  I  else  should  see. 

But,  day  by  day,  joy  waned  and  withered  off : ' 

The  Babe's  face,  premature  with  peak  and  pine, 

Sank  into  wrinkled  ruinous  old  age. 

Suffering  and  death,  then  mist-like  disappeared, 

And  showed  only  the  Cross  at  end  of  all."  ^ 

c.  In  Caponsacchi^s  speech : 

(i)  Pompilia's  likeness  to  the  Madonna  of  Rafael,  — 
when  Caponsacchi  first  saw  her : 

"It  was  as  when,  in  our  cathedral  once, 
As  I  got  yawningly  through  matin-song, 
I  saw  facchini  bear  a  burden  up. 
Base  it  on  the  high-altar,  break  away 
A  board  or  two,  and  leave  the  thing  inside 
Lofty  and  lone :  and  lo,  when  next  I  looked, 
There  was  the  Rafael!"  2 

and  again  when  she  was  standing  at  her  window : 

"the  same  great,  grave,  griefful  air 
As  stands  i'  the  dusk,  on  altar  that  I  know, 
Left  alone  with  one  moonbeam  in  her  cell, 
Our  Lady  of  all  the  Sorrows."  ' 

(2)  He  urged  her  to  rest  at  Foligno : 

"But  her  whole  face  changed, 
The  misery  grew  again  about  her  mouth, 
The  eyes  burned  up  from  faintness,  like  the  fawn's 
Tired  to  death  in  the  thicket,  when  she  feels 
The  probing  spear  o'  the  huntsman."  * 

1  P.  746,  U.  58,  72-78;  p.  747, 11.  1-4.  *P-  757,  U-  43-49. 

» P.  761,  U.  32-35.  *  P-  768,  U.  59-63. 

\ 


346  •    BROWNING  STUDIES 

That  line, 

"The  misery  grew  again  about  her  mouth," 

is  a  marvel  of  accurate  description.  We  have  all  some  time 
noticed  this  take  place  in  a  face,  but  have  never  known  how 
to  describe  it.  I  don't  believe  any  words  can  ever  tell 
the  story  Uke  this  line  of  Browning's. 

(3)  In  one  of  Caponsacchi's  references  to  Guido,  he  uses 
a  figure  extreme  in  its  audacity.  Guido's  existence  was  an 
insult  to  God.  That  there  should  be  any  such  man  was  as 
if  someone  had  spit  in  God's  face.  And  so  Caponsacchi 
says  that,  if  he  had  killed  Guido  at  Castelnuovo, 

"Tl^ere  had  he  lain  abolished  with  his  lie, 
Creation  purged  o'  the  miscreate,  man  redeemed, 
A  spittle  wiped  off  from  the  face  of  God."  * 

d.   In  Pompilia's  monologue : 
(i)   Her  attitude  toward  Guido : 

"We  shall  not  meet  in  this  world  nor  the  next ; 
But  where  will  God  be  absent  ?    In  His  face 
Is  light,  but  in  His  shadow  healing  too : 
Let  Guido  touch  the  shadow  and  be  healed  ! "  ^ 

(2)  Her  attitude  toward  Caponsacchi,  ^'who,"  she  says, 
''put  his  breast  between  the  spears  and  me" : 

"O  lover  of  my  life,  O  soldier-saint, 
No  work  begun  shall  ever  pause  for  death ! 
Love  will  be  helpful  to  me  more  and  more 
I'  the  coming  course,  the  new  path  I  must  tread  — 
My  weak  hand  in  thy  strong  hand,  strong  for  that !" 

And  leaving  messages  for  him,  she  says : 

"Tell  him, 
It  was  the  name  of  him  I  sprang  to  meet 
When  came  the  knock,  the  summons  and  the  end." 
» P.  771, 11.  27-29.  2  p.  800, 11. 67-70. 


THE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK  347 

It  seemed  to  her  that  the  knock  and  that  name  meant : 
"My  great  heart,  my  strong  hand  are  back  again ! " 

She  says : 

"I  would  have  spriing  to  these,  beckoning  across 
Murder  and  hell  gigantic  and  distinct 
O'  the  threshold,  posted  to  exclude  me  heaven : 
He  is  ordained  to  call  and  I  to  come ! 
Do  not  the  dead  wear  flowers  when  dressed  for  God? 
Say,  —  I  am  all  in  flowers  from  head  to  foot ! 
Say,  —  not  one  flower  of  all  he  said  and  did, 
Might  seem  to  flit  unnoticed,  fade  unknown. 
But  dropped  a  seed,  has  grown  a  balsam-tree 
Whereof  the  blossoming  perfumes  the  place 
At  this  supreme  of  moments ! " 

And  her  last  words  are  still  of  him : 

"So,  let  him  wait  God's  instant  men  call  years ; 
Meantime  hold  hard  by  truth  and  his  great  soul, 
Do  out  the  duty  !    Through  such  souls  alone 
God  stooping  shows  sufficient  of  His  Ught 
For  us  i'  the  dark  to  rise  by.    And  I  rise."  ^ 

e.  In  the  Pope's  soliloquy  as  he  meditates  over  the  case, 
with  the  winter  in  his  soul :  ^ 

(i)  He  is  much  touched  by  Pompilia's  character,  "perfect 
in  whiteness,"  in  the  midst  of  the  world's  wickedness : 

"Stoop  thou  down,  my  child. 
Give  one  good  moment  to  the  poor  old  Pope 
Heart-sick  at  having  all  his  world  to  blame." « 
"The  marvel  of  a  soul  hke  thine,  earth's  flower 
She  holds  up  to  the  softened  gaze  of  God."  * 

»  P.  801, 11.  41,  47-51,  67,  69-82 ;  p.  802,  U.  17-21.  "Lover  of  my  life" 
means,  of  course,  my  life's  one  lover,  my  supreme  lover. 

2  P.  843, 1.  13,  "With  winter  in  my  soul  beyond  the  world's,"  i.e.  beyond 
the  world's  winter,  the  winter  outside  his  window. 

'  P.  852,  U.  39-41.  *  P.  852,  U.  SI,  52. 


348 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


"  Go  past  me 
And  get  thy  praise,  —  and  be  not  far  to  seek 
Presently  when  I  follow  if  I  may."  * 

(2)  The  Pope's  estimate  of  Caponsacchi : 

"Irregular  noble  scapegrace."  2 

"All  blindness,  bravery  and  obedience !  — " 

Then  correcting  himself : 

"blind? 
Ay,  as  a  man  would  be  inside  the  sun, 
DeHrious  with  the  plenitude  of  light 
Should  interfuse  him  to  the  finger-ends."  ^ 

That's  a  great  line: 

"DeHrious  with  the  plenitude  of  light." 

» 

(3)  The  Pope's  basis  for  optimism : 

"I  must  outlive  a  thing  ere  know  it  dead : 
When  I  outlive  the  faith  there  is  a  sun, 
When  I  lie,  ashes  to  the  very  soul,  — 
Some  one,  not  I,  must  wail  above  the  heap, 
'He  died  in  dark  whence  never  morn  arose.' 
While  I  see  day  succeed  the  deepest  night  — 
How  can  I  speak  but  as  I  know  ?  —  my  speech 
Must  be,  throughout  the  darkness,  'It  will  end: 
The  Hght  that  did  burn,  will  burn  ! ' "  * 

(4)  One  of  the  greatest  things  in  the  whole  poem  is  the 
Pope's  moral  courage.  As  this  man,  feeble  with  extreme 
age  and  expecting  to  die  any  day,  sends  Count  Guido  to 
his  death,  he  does  not  falter.  He  declares  that,  having 
used  the  best  judgment  God  has  given  him,  he  will  not  shrink 
to  meet  Guido's  spirit  in  the  world  to  come,  even  if  it  turns 
out  that  Guido  is  as  innocent  as  a  babe.  He  even  says 
that,  believing  Guido  guilty  from  the  evidence  submitted, 

ip.8s3,U.  4S-47.  '^P.  853, 1.  53. 

»  P.  8S9,  U.  4-7.  *  p.  859, 1.  77-p-  860, 1.  3. 


TEE  RING  AND  THE  BOOK 


349 


he  would  not  dare  to  die  and  face  God,  leaving  Guido  with- 
out suffering  the  penalty  of  his  crime. 

"Therefore  there  is  not  any  doubt  to  clear 
When  I  shall  write  the  brief  word  presently 
And  chink  the  hand-bell,  which  I  pause  to  do. 
Irresolute  ?    Not  I,  more  than  the  mound 
With  the  pine-trees  on  it  yonder !     Some  surmise, 
Perchance,  that  since  man's  wit  is  fallible, 
Mine  may  fail  here?     Suppose  it  so,  —  what  then  ? 
Say,  —  Guido,  I  count  guilty,  there's  no  babe 
So  guiltless,  for  I  misconceive  the  man  ! 
If  some  acuter  wit,  fresh  probing,  sound 
This  multifarious  mass  of  words  and  deeds 
Deeper,  and  reach  through  guilt  to  innocence, 
I  shall  face  Guido's  ghost  nor  blench  a  jot." 

And  this  is  what  he  will  say  to  Guido's  ghost : 

"  God  who  set  me  to  judge  thee  meted  out 
So  much  of  judging  faculty,  no  more : 
Ask  Him  if  I  was  slack  in  use  thereof  ! "  * 

And  continuing  his  meditation : 

"For  I  am  ware  it  is  the  seed  of  act 
God  holds  appraising  in  His  hollow  palm. 
Therefore  I  stand  on  my  integrity, 
Nor  fear  at  all."  * 

"But  say  .  .  .     I  forthwith 
Acknowledge  a  prompt  summons  and  lie  dead : 
Why,  then  I  stand  already  in  God's  face 
And  hear  *  Since  by  its  fruit  a  tree  is  judged. 
Show  me  thy  fruit,  the  latest  act  of  thine ! 
For  in  the  last  is  summed  the  first  and  all.' 

I  must  plead 
This  condemnation  of  a  man  to-day."  ' 

'''Quis  pro  Domino? 
Who  is  upon  the  Lord's  side?'  asked  the  Count. 

1  P.  843,  U.  33-41, 61-67.  2  P.  843, 11-  72,  73,  76,  77. 

» P.  844, 11.  53-58,  60,  61. 


350  •   BROWNING  STUDIES 

I,  who  write  — 

'On  receipt  of  this  command, 
Acquaint  Count  Guido  and  his  fellows  four 
They  die  to-morrow:  could  it  be  to-night, 
The  better,  but  the  work  to  do  takes  time. 
Set  with  all  diligence  a  scaffold  up,'  — 

{Here  follow  detailed  directions  as  to  the  execution.) 

'till  to-morrow,  then. 
Let  there  be  prayer  incessant  for  the  five.'"  ^ 
"Enough,  for  I  may  die  this  very  night : 
And  how  should  I  dare  die,  this  man  let  live?" 

Then  as  he  hands  his  decision  to  the  attendant  who  has 
just  come  in  at  the  sound  of  the  bell : 

"Carry  this  forthwith  to  the  Governor."  ^ 

VI.   Conclusion 

A  word  by  way  of  general  conclusion :  It  has  been  said 
that  if  anyone  enters  into  the  heart  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book^ 
he  has  by  so  doing  had  an  experience  of  inestimable  value. 
Certain  it  is  that  I  know  of  no  man  who  faces  human 
nature  and  its  passions  and  emotions  as  unflinchingly 
as  Robert  Browning.  The  Ring  and  the  Book  is  the  most 
soul-satisfying  piece  of  literature  I  have  ever  read.  In 
spite  of  all  its  defects,  it  is  wonderful  as  an  effort  to  interpret 
human  life.  In  its  passion,  beauty,  and  wealth  of  color, 
and  in  its  marvellous  grasp  of  human  nature,  it  seems  to  me 
it  can  be  compared  only  with  the  great  operas. 

»  P.  86s,  U.  59-65 ;  p.  866,  U.  i,  2.  2  P.  866, 11. 19-21. 


XVII 
BALAUSTION^S  ADVENTURE 

Pp.  541-574 

Balaustion^s  Adventure  was  published  in  1871.  The 
dedication  is  dated  London,  July  23,  1871,  i.e.  two  years 
and  a  half  after  the  last  volume  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book.^ 

Balaustion's  Adventure  consists  of  a  translation  of  the 
Alkestis  of  Euripides,  suspended  in  a  stor^  of  a  Greek  girl, 
Balaustion,  who  finally  recites  Euripides'  play  and  describes 
it  —  tells  how  it  looked  on  the  stage.  Of  course,  the  words 
of  the  play  alone  are  from  Euripides.  All  the  rest  is 
Browning's,  the  product  of  that  wonderful  imagination 
which  enabled  him  to  make  things  live  before  us.  In  the 
dedication.  Browning  says  that  the  work  was  laid  on  him 
"as  a  task"  by  the  Countess  Cowper  but  "has  proved  the 
most  delightful  of  May-month  amusements."  Since  Eurip- 
ides' tragedy  is  the  reason  for  the  existence  of  this  poem  of 
Browning's,  we  will  begin  at  the  beginning. 

I.  The  Great  Greek  Dramatists 

I.  Greece  in  her  prime  produced  three  great  writers  of 
tragedy : 

^  We  should  avoid  being  confused  by  the  fact  that  in  the  Globe  Edition, 
which  we  are  using,  both  Balaustion^s  Adventure  (1871)  and  Aristophanes* 
Apology  (1875)  are  placed  before  The  Ring  and  the  Book  (1868-69).  It  is 
hard  to  see  any  good  reason  why  the  chronological  order  and  Browning's 
own  arrangement  in  his  collected  works  (1888-89)  have  been,  in  this  instance, 
disregarded  in  this  edition. 

351 


352 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


a.  ^schylus,  the  greatest,  born  525  B.C.,  died  456  B.C. 
He  gained  the  first  prize  for  tragic  excellence  thirteen  times. 
He  wrote  some  80  plays,  or  more.  Only  seven  of  his  plays 
are  in  existence.  Of  these  the  most  famous  are  his  Prome- 
theus Bound  and  his  Agamemnon. 

b.  Sophocles,  born  495  B.C.,  died  406  B.C.  He  defeated 
^schylus  in  the  year  468,  and  won  all  together  about 
twenty  victories.  He  wrote  over  a  hundred  plays,  of  which 
only  seven  survive.  The  best  known  are  the  Antigone 
and  the  (Edipus  Tyrannus. 

c.  Euripides,  born  480  B.C.,  died  406  B.C.  (died,  a  younger 
man,  the  same  year  as  Sophocles).  He  defeated  Sophocles 
in  441,  but  gained  the  first  prize  only  five  times  in  all.  He 
wrote  about  75  pieces,  of  which  eighteen  are  extant.  His 
most  widely  known,  outside  of  those  which  we  shall  pres- 
ently mention  as  translated  by  Browning,  are  probably 
the  Electra  and  the  Orestes. 

2.  The  one  great  writer  of  comedy  was  Aristophanes, 
born  about  450  B.C.,  died  about  380  B.C.  He  won  several 
prizes.  He  wrote  over  50  comedies,  of  which  eleven  are 
extant,  some  of  the  greatest  being  the  Knights,  the  Clouds j 
the  BirdSy  and  the  Frogs. 

3 .  These  great  dramatic  contests  were  held  in  the  Dionys- 
iac  Theatre  in  Athens,  at  the  greater  Dionysia,  or  greater 
festival  in  honor  of  Dionysus,  the  god  of  wine  (also  called 
Bacchus).  Of  the  three  or  four  annual  festivals  in  his 
honor,  two  are  known  as  the  greater  and  the  lesser  Dionysia. 
The  lesser  Dionysia  were  celebrated  in  the  country  places  at 
the  first  tasting  of  the  new  wine,  and  covered  four  days,  — 
usually  days  corresponding  to  our  Dec.  19-22.  The 
greater  Dionysia  were  held  in  the  city  of  Athens  six 
days,  and  covered  dates  usually  equivalent  to  our 
March    2  8- April    2.      On   the   last    three   days   of    this 


BALAUSTION'S  ADVENTURE  353 

supreme  Dionysiac  festival,  the  great  contests  took  place 
in  the  theatre. 

4.  Both  Browning  and  Mrs.  Browning  were  very  fond 
of  Greek.  Browning  has  translated  three  plays  —  the 
Alkestis  and  the  Herakles  of  Euripides  and  the  Agamemnon 
of  yEschylus.  Mrs.  Browning  translated  ^schylus' 
Prometheus  Bound,  and  many  short  poems  and  parts  of 
poems  by  Greek  authors.  Both  were  especially  fond  of 
Euripides;  witness  the  half  of  a  stanza  from  Mrs. 
Browning^s  Wine  of  Cyprus  which  Browning  has  placed 
at  the  beginning  of  Balaustion's  Adventure.  Of  Browning's 
own  attitude,  the  work  he  has  done  on  Euripides  is  eloquent 
evidence,  especially  the  discussion  he  has  carried  on  in  his 
Aristophanes'  Apology,  ''which,"  says  Mahaffy,  ''is,  by  the 
way,  an  Euripides'  Apology  also,  if  such  be  required  in 
the  present  day."  ^ 

II.  The  Alkestis  of  Euripides 

The  word  is  usually  spelled  Alcestis,  and  pronounced 
with  a  soft  c.     Browning  follows  the  Greek  form. 

1.  The  Alkestis  was  presented  in  the  spring  of  438  B.C. 
Euripides  did  not  win  the  prize  with  it.  Sophocles  won 
the  prize  that  year.^ 

2.  The  story  of  the  Alkestis  is  just  this : 

Admetos,  King  of  Thessaly,  was  due  to  die.  But  he 
has  in  his  household  the  god  Apollo,  who  had  been  banished 

^  Prof.  J.  P.  Mahaffy,  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  A  History  of  Classical 
Greek  Literature,  London,*  1880,  vol,  I,  p.  466  footnote.  Mahaffy's  whole 
sentence  is:  "This  allusion  to  Mr.  Browning  suggests  the  remark  that  he 
has  treated  the  controversy  between  Euripides  and  Aristophanes  with  more 
learning  and  ability  than  all  other  critics,  in  his  Aristophanes'  Apology,  which 
is,  by  the  way,  an  Euripides'  Apology  also,  if  such  be  required  in  the  present 
day." 

2  Browning,  p.  570, 11.  65,  66;  p.  573,  U.  73-75)  P-  574,  U.  22-29' 


354  ""BROWNING  STUDIES 

by  Zeus  to  serve  Admetos  for  a  time  as  a  shepherd.  Now, 
Apollo  appealed  to  the  Fates  to  spare  Admetos,  who  was  at 
the  point  of  death.  The  Fates  consented  on  condition 
that  another  should  die  in  his  place  —  be  substitute  for 
his  life.  No  one  was  found  willing  to  do  it  except  Admetos' 
wife,  Alkestis.  Admetos  was  just  selfish  enough  to  save 
his  own  Hfe  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  wife's.  He  recovered, 
and  in  due  time  Death  foreclosed  on  Alkestis.  Then  Ad- 
metos wailed  and  tore  his  hair.  But  he  had  made  the 
bargain.     Death  was  inexorable.     So  Alkestis  died. 

And  presently  Herakles  arrives  at  the  house  of  his 
friend  Admetos,  on  his  way  to  perform  one  of  his  great 
labors,  —  now  going  to  conquer  the  man-eating  horses 
of  the  Thracian  Diomedes.  Herakles  sees  signs  of  grief, 
but  is  prevailed  upon  to  stay  at  Admetos'  palace,  not  know- 
ing the  Queen  is  dead.  While  he  feasts,  they  go  with  her 
body  to  the  tomb.  Herakles  learns  the  truth  from  a 
servant,  goes  to  the  tomb  by  another  road  so  that  he  does 
not  meet  the  returning  funeral  procession,  lies  in  wait 
there  until  Death  comes  to  drink  up  the  wine  and  blood  of 
sacrifices  set  as  offerings  to  him,  seizes  Death  and  wrestles 
with  him  and  compels  him  to  give  up  Alkestis.  Then 
Herakles  brings  her  back  under  his  lion-skin,  and  tries  to 
compel  Admetos  to  receive  this  woman  whom  Herakles 
says  he  won  at  a  wrestling.  When  Admetos  has  protested 
and  resisted  enough,  Herakles  sets  the  wife  before  them  and 
restores  her  to  her  husband. 

III.  Browning's  Translation  of  the  Alkestis 

Though  sometimes  summarizing  parts  of  the  play.  Brown- 
ing puts  forth  most  of  the  story  in  a  translation  of  the  exact 
words  of  Euripides.  This  translation  has  received  high 
praise;  e.g.  Mahaffy  in  1880  considers  it  "by  far  the  best 


BALAUSTION'S  ADVENTURE  355 

translation"  of  the  Alkestis  yet  made.^  It  is  absolutely 
literal.  Browning  has  not  only  followed  the  original 
word  by  word,  but  he  gives  the  exact  root-meaning  of  words, 
even  where  a  literal  translator  would  think  himself  justified 
in  taking  a  more  general  sense.^ 

Browning's  Uteralness  extends  to  the  exact  Greek  form 
of  proper  names,  where  we  usually  have  the  form  that  has 
come  through  the  Latin.  Thus:  Alkestis^  (Alcestis), 
Apollon'^  (Apollo),  Admetos^  (Admetus),  Herakles^  (Her- 
cules), Phoibos^  (Phoebus),  Asklepios^  (^Esculapius),  Ais- 

^  Mahaffy,  A  History  of  Classical  Greek  Literature,  London,  1880,  vol.  I, 
p.  329:  "By  far  the  best  translation  is  Mr.  Browning's  in  his  Balaustion's 
Adventure,  but  it  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  he  did  not  render  the  choral 
odes  into  lyric  verse.  No  one  has  more  thoroughly  appreciated  the  mean 
features  of  Admetus  and  Pheres,  and  their  dramatic  propriety." 

But  Prof.  R.  G.  Moulton,  in  a  paper  read  before  the  London  Browning 
Society  in  1891  {Browning  SocJ's  Papers,  Pt.  XIII,  No.  67),  insists  that 
Browning  has,  in  "his  interpretations  of  words  and  sentences"  and  in  his 
comment  on  the  play,  misrepresented  the  character  of  Admetos,  —  this 
being  due  to  Browning's  having  "caught  a  wrong  impression  as  to  one  of 
the  main  elements  of  the  Greek  story." 

As  to  Mahafify's  opinion  of  Browning's  translation  of  the  Agamemnon^ 
see  pp.  268  and  277  in  the  same  vol.  cited  above,  and  as  to  Browning's 
translation  of  the  Herakles,  p.  348.  Mahaffy  (p.  268)  speaks  of  Browning's 
"  matchless  hand  —  matchless,  I  conceive,  in  conve3dng  the  deeper  spirit  of 
the  Greek  poets,"  "his  excess  of  conscience  as  a  translator,"  and  (p.  277) 
"his  genius  for  reproducing  Greek  plays."  Mahaffy  calls  Browning's  "an 
over-faithful  version"  of  the  Agamemnon  and  says  his  Herakles  is  an  "ad- 
mirable translation"  which  will  give  "English  readers  a  thoroughly  faithful 
idea  of  this  splendid  play."  In  the  light  of  Mahaffy 's  testimony,  I  think 
we  may  trust  Browning's  handling  of  the  Alkestis. 

2  So  Arthur  Symons,  in  his  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Browning,  London, 
1886,  p.  152;  new  ed.,  1906,  pp.  172,  173. 

3  P.  544,  1.  13 ;  p.  546, 1.  55 ;  p.  547, 1.  51 ;  and  throughput  the  poem. 
*  P.  545, 1-  63 ;  p.  547, 1-  12 ;  p.  557, 1.  11 ;  and  often. 

5  P.  545, 11.  61,  79 ;  p.  546, 1.  50;  and  throughout. 
« P.  544, 11.  21,  30,  50;  p.  554,  U.  18,  47,  56;  and  throughout. 
'  e.g.  p.  545, 1.  75 ;  P-  546, 1.  46 ;  p.  548, 1.  12.  , 

8  P.  545,1-  75. 


356  *  BROWNING  STUDIES 

chulos^  (^schylus),  Sophokles^  (Sophocles),  and  a  great 
host  of  others.^  This  practice  he  follows  consistently  in 
all  three  of  his  great  Greek  pieces  wherever  such  names 
occur.  Browning's  idea  in  doing  this  he  himself  explains 
in  the  introduction  to  his  translation  of  the  Agamemnon,'^ 
and  we  cannot  help  feeling  that  there  is  much  force  in  what 
he  says. 

This  plan  extends  even  to  adjectives,  made  anew,  direct 
from  the  Greek,  by  the  addition  of  English  endings;  e.g. 
Dionusiac^  (Dionysiac),  Thrakian^  (Thracian),  Aigaian"^ 
(^gean),  Puthian  ^  (Pythian),  Ludian  ^  (Lydian),  Phrugian^^ 
(Phrygian),  and  many  others.  We  can  understand  Brown- 
ing's motive  in  this,  but  the  process  certainly  makes  curious- 
looking  EngHsh  words. 

Akin  to  the  tendency  to  complete  literalness  is  Browning's 
using  in  English  so  many  Greek  words;  e.g.  Baccheion^^ 
(temple  of  Bacchus),  Moirai^^  (the  Fates),  rhesis^^  (a  speech 
in  a  play),  pharos^^  (cloak),  peplos^^  (robe),  turannos^^  (king), 
and  many  others.  But  inasmuch  as  these  words  are  usually 
found  in  Browning's  comment,  not  in  his  translation  of 
Euripides'  Hues,  the  chief  reason  for  using  them  must  be 
to  create  Greek  atmosphere. 

1  e.g.  p.  542,  U.  3,  62 ;  p.  543, 1.  9 ;  p.  544, 1.  74.  ^ 

2  e.g.  p.  542, 1.  3 ;  p.  543, 1.  39 ;  p.  544, 1.  74. 

3  See  the  first  50  lines  of  the  poem  for  abundance  of  examples. 
4 Pp.  1095,  1096.  "P.  549,  1.  71. 

5  P.  542,  1.  i;  p.  570,  1.  74;  and  often.       i5  p.  5^3^  1,  36;  p.  565,  1.  18. 

«  e.g.  p.  554, 1.  64;  p.  555, 1.  8.  16  p.  562,  1.  25. 

^  P-  557,  1-  33. 

'P-  557,  1.  12. 

9  P.  559,  1.41. 
»°  P.  559,1.42. 
"  P.  545,  11.  39,  49. 
^^«g-P-545, 1.  84;  p.  552, 1.  IS. 
"P.  543,1.46. 


BALAUSTION'S  ADVENTURE  357 

IV.  The  Narrative  in  which  Browning  has  Sus- 
pended THE  Play 

I.  Here  we  see  Browning's  lack  of  critical  judgment.  It 
is  an  excellent  scheme  —  to  make  the  play  live  in  a  frame- 
work of  narrative,  but  he  has  made  the  setting  unnecessarily 
compHcated.  What  we  want  is  for  the  girl  Balaustion  to 
tell  how  she  saw  the  play  —  what  the  actors  said,  how  the 
play  looked.     But  Browning  has  introduced  several  kinks. 

a.  He  places  Balaustion  in  the  second  period  (421-413 
B.C.)  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  when  the  Athenians  carried 
the  war  into  Sicily.  Syracuse  was  a  Corinthian  colony 
founded  about  735  B.C.  on  the  east  coast  of  Sicily.  Syracuse 
held  with  Sparta  in  the  war.  In  the  summer  of  415  B.C., 
Nikias  led  an  expedition  against  Syracuse,  and  laid  siege 
to  the  city.  He  was  reinforced  the  following  year,  but  was 
overwhelmingly  defeated  in  the  autumn  of  413  B.C. 

The  incident  which  Browning  relates  as  Balaustion's 
adventure  he  got  from  Plutarch's  Lives  of  Illustrious  Men^  — 
in  the  biography  of  Nikias,  where  it  is  related  that  many 
Athenians,  taken  prisoners  by  the  Syracusans,  were  "saved 
for  the  sake  of  Euripides  "  by  repeating  his  poems,  and  that 
many  captives  who  finally  got  back  to  Athens  went  and 
thanked  Euripides  for  their  release.    And  Plutarch  goes  on : 

"Nor  need  this  be  any  wonder,  for  it  is  told  that  a  ship  of 
Caunus  fleeing  into  one  of  their  harbors  for  protection,  pur- 
sued by  pirates,  was  not  received,  but  forced  back,  till  one 
asked  if  they  knew  any  of  Euripides's  verses,  and  on  their  say- 
ing they  did,  they  were  admitted,  and  their  ship  brought  into 
harbor."  1 

1  Clough's  Translation,  ed.  Boston,  1895,  vol.  Ill,  p.  329;  same  vol.  and 
p.  in  impression  of  1906,  Cf.  North's  Translation,  ed.  with  Int.  by  Wynd- 
ham,  London,  1895,  vol.  IV,  pp.  42,  43;  and  Perrin's  Translation,  Nicias 
and  Alcibiades,  New  York,  191 2,  pp.  105, 106. 


358  "  BROWNING  STUDIES 

Browning  seized  upon  this  incident,  and  his  Balaustion 
(a  nickname,  ''Wild-pomegranate-flower"  ^)  is  a  girl  from 
Rhodes,  who  protested  against  Rhodes'  forsaking  the  side 
of  Athens  after  the  Athenian  disaster  in  Sicily ;  she  crossed, 
with  a  few  friends,  to  Kaunos  (Caunus)  in  Asia  Minor 
and  went  with  them  on  this  ship,  and  she  is  the  one  who 
recites  Euripides  for  the  Syracusans  (the  piece  being  the 
AlkesHs)  and  saves  the  ship  she  is  on.  Fine  and  completely 
without  confusion,  if  Browning  had  only  presented  her  as 
reciting  the  tragedy  to  the  people  of  Syracuse  and  telling 
how  it  looked  when  she  saw  it  on  the  stage. ^ 

b.  But  this  Browning  does  not  do.  He  presents  Balaus- 
tion some  time  afterward,  sitting  in  Athens  talking  with 
four  girls  —  ''Petale,  PhulHs,  Charope,  Chrusion"  ^  —  and 
telHng  them  how  she  saved  the  ship  at  Syracuse,  and  then 
finally  repeating  to  these  four  girls  the  Alkestis  and  describ- 
ing it,  as  she  did  for  the  Syracusans  at  that  memorable 
time.  So,  be  sure  of  the  situation.  Either  plan  would  have 
served:  either  to  present  Balaustion  giving  the  play  to 
the  Syracusans,  or  to  present  her  reciting  and  describing 
it  for  these  four  girls.*  But  combining  the  two  as  Browning 
does  is  complicated.  There  is  confusion  from  this  wheel 
within  wheel. 

2.  And  again  Browning's  defects  are  apparent  at  the 

ip.  543,  11.  85-87;  cf.  the  explanatory  11,  following;  also  p.  544,  11. 
52-56. 

*  It  should  be  noticed  that  Balaustion  had  not  seen  the  play  at  Athens 
but  at  Kameiros  (Camirus)  in  the  island  of  Rhodes:  p.  541,  11.  i,  2;  p.  544, 
11.  38-43. 

'  P.  541, 11.  4,  5.  They  are  sitting  "by  the  streamlet-side"  near  the  temple 
of  Bacchus,  p.  545,  11.  37-39,  49-58. 

*  If  this  latter  plan  had  been  adopted,  it  would  have  given  Browning  the 
same  opportunity  he  now  has  for  description  of,  and  comment  on,  the 
play,  but  would  have  sacrificed  the  beautiful  story  of  Balaustion's  saving 
the  ship  at  Syracuse  and  would,  of  course,  have  changed  the  title  of  his  poem. 


BALAUSTION'S  ADVENTURE  359 

end.  He  had  poor  judgment;  he  did  not  know  when  to 
stop.  After  he  has  done  admirably  what  he  set  out  to  do 
and  has  closed  his  work  with  Euripides,  he  then  suggests  a 
version  of  his  own  of  the  story  of  Alkestis,  —  a  version 
which  is  weak  and  flabby  as  compared  with  the  splendid 
tragedy  of  Euripides.  It  is  almost  incredible  that  Robert 
Browning  should  do  this  thing,  after  his  wonderful  appre- 
ciation of  Herakles'  part  in  Euripides'  play:  Browning's 
new  version  suggested  leaves  out  the  finest  thing  in  the 
whole  story  —  Herakles'  victory  over  Death. 

3.  To  sum  up:  Browning's  translation  of  the  ^/^e^/w  and 
the  comment  and  description  in  the  mouth  of  Balaustion 
are  magnificent.  The  introductory  narrative  is  interesting 
but  confusing.  The  appendix  suggesting  a  different  form 
of  the  story  is  unfortunate  and  weak;  it  mars  the  rest. 
Subtracting,  then,  the  introduction,  except  to  remember 
that  Balaustion  is  reciting  the  play  and  telHng  how  she  saw 
it  acted,  and  leaving  off  the  conclusion,  or  appendix,  we 
have  the  Alkestis  of  Euripides  acted  before  our  eyes,  ^  one 
of  the  finest  things  in  any  literature  —  the  genius  of  Eurip- 
ides plus  the  genius  of  Robert  Browning.^ 

V.  The  Character  of  Herakles 

And  the  finest  thing  in  the  work  is  the  character  of 
Herakles  —  our  further  study  this  morning.  The  story  in 
the  play  itself  is  interesting  and  striking  —  and  so  lacking 
in  tangles.  The  character  of  Admetos  is  interesting  —  so 
selfish  and  such  a  change  in  him  due  to  the  experience  of 
grief.  The  character  of  Alkestis,  in  the  sacrifice  of  her  life 
that  her  husband  might  live,  is  beautiful.  But  after  all, 
your  thoughts,  when  they  turn  to  Balaustion' s  Adventure y 

1  The  presentation  of  the  play  begins  with  Balaustion's  description  of  the 
scene  (p.  545,  1.  59)  and  closes  with  her  comments  (p.  570, 11.  64-79). 


360  *    BROWNING  STUDIES 

will  see  the  figure  of  Herakles  standing  there,  with  his 
superb  strength  and  joy  —  a  fine  refreshing  figure  in  the 
world's  weakness  and  sorrowfulness. 

A .  Herakles  appears  in  the  play  at  a  moment  when  the 
dramatic  contrast  of  his  nature  to  the  nature  of  the  others 
will  count  for  most. 

1.  By  the  soliloquy  of  Apollo  and  the  dialogue  between 
Apollo  and^Death,  we  have  learned  the  exact  situation,  — 
just  how  cowardly  and  selfish  Admetos  has  been  —  just 
how  he  has  grasped  at  the  slightest  chance  of  saving  his 
life,  no  matter  how  much  it  costs  —  how  cowardly  and 
selfish  all  the  rest  are,  no  one  willing  to  die  in  his  place 
except  his  good  wife  Alkestis  —  and  how  this  coward,  this 
life-grasping  man,  has  been  willing  to  let  her  be  his  substi- 
tute, and  now  she  is  dying  that  he  may  live.  Our  sym- 
pathies can  hardly  be  expected  to  go  out  to  such  a  man  now 
in  his  distress  at  his  wife's  d)dng  hour. 

2.  We  further  learn  of  the  progress  of  Alkestis  to  her 
doom,  by  the  words  of  the  matron  who  comes  out  and  re- 
ports what  is  going  on  inside.  And  the  full  pitifulness  of 
the  situation  is  emphasized  by  the  lamentations  of  the  chorus. 

3.  The  climax  of  this  tension  comes  when  Alkestis  herself 
is  brought  out  to  look  her  last  on  the  sun  ere  she  descend 
to  the  unsunned  spaces  of  the  lower  world.  Each  harrowing 
detail  of  her  death  is  set  before  us,  —  her  farewell  to  the  sun 
and  the  beauty  of  the  world  —  her  charge  to  her  husband 
never  to  take  another  wife  —  her  pitiful  farewell  to  her 
children  —  her  shivering  at  death's  touch  —  her  imagining 
the  figure  of  the  boatman  of  the  Styx — her  gasping  out  her 
last  breath.  Our  sympathies  turn  away  from  the  husband 
in  spite  of  all  his  weeping  and  protesting.  The  laments 
of  the  chorus  and  their  praises  of  her  only  make  us  feel 
keenly  the  utter  selfishness  of  him  and  them. 


BALAUSTION'S  ADVENTURE  361 

4.  Presently  Admetos  withdraws  with  Alkestis*  body 
into  the  palace,  to  prepare  it  for  the  tomb.  The  fore- 
ground is  filled  with  the  aged  chorus,  lamenting  the  woeful 
case  and  praising  the  dead  queen.  Alkestis,  the  only  one 
generous  and  great-souled  among  them,  is  dead,  —  dead 
through  the  immeasurable  selfishness  of  her  husband. 
And  the  chorus,  petty,  selfish,  Hke  himself,  can  only  ex- 
cuse him,  and  praise  her  sacrifice.  Death  is  inexorable 
and  victorious,  and  the  grief  of  Admetos'  palace  seems 
to  spread  its  shadow  over  everything,  enveloping  in  gloom 
all  goodness  and  beauty  and  truth. 

5.  And  suddenly  a  change  —  a  new  angle  —  a  new  light, 
—  all  from  the  coming  of  a  man.^  For  Herakles  startles 
them  with  his  big  voice.  He  is  here,  and  things  seem 
different  all  of  a  sudden. 

"Oh,  the  thrill  that  ran  through  us  ! 
Never  was  aught  so  good  and  opportune 
As  that  great  interrupting  voice ! "  ^ 

For  outside  the  palace,  maundered  the  aged  chorus ;  inside, 
Admetos  and  the  servants  were  laying  out  Alkestis'  body, 
and  the  sense  of  it  —  the  realization  of  "  what  was  a-doing 
inside  "  — 

"  Came  putting  out  what  warmth  i'  the  world  was  left." ' 

1  Herakles  was  the  son  of  Zeus  and  a  human  mother,  Alkmene :  cf .  Brown- 
ing, p.  555,  11.  17,  18;  p.  564,  11.  40-43,  68,  69;  and  often.  Browning 
sometimes  calls  him  a  man  {e.g.  p.  547,  U.  17, 18;  p.  556, 11.  73,  74),  sometimes 
a  god  (e.g.  p.  554, 11.  59,  60 ;  p.  562, 11.  85,  86).  Browning  makes  good  use  of 
the  two-fold  nature  of  Herakles,  playing  off  the  one  element  agamst  the 
other,  as  e.g.  in  p.  554, 11.  19-22,  and  p.  564, 11.  38,  39. 

«P.  554,  11.  1-3- 

»P.  554,  11.  3-10.  Browning's  phrase  (1.  4)  "this  dispirited  old  age" 
means  the  chorus,  —  "old  age"  for  the  aged  chorus  collectively.  Cf.  p.  547, 
U.  42-47. 


362  '  BROWNING  STUDIES 

"Then,  as  it  happens  at  a  sacrifice, 
When,  drop  by  drop,  some  lustral  bath  is  brimmed : 
Into  the  thin  and  clear  and  cold,  at  once 
They  slaughter  a  whole  wine-skin :  Bacchos'  blood 
Sets  the  white  water  all  a-flame ;  even  so. 
Sudden  into  the  midst  of  sorrow,  leapt 
Along  with  the  gay  cheer  of  that  great  voice, 
Hope,  joy,  salvation :  Herakles  was  here ! "  * 

B.  And  the  thing  that  made  the  change  was  not  any- 
thing he  said,  nor  anything  he  did,  but  just  his  presence  — 
the  bare  fact  of  his  being  there  —  just  himself,  —  this 
changed  things : 

"The  irresistible  sound  wholesome  heart 
O' the  hero, — 
This  drove  back,  dried  up,  sorrow  at  its  source."  ^ 

This  is  what  Character  always  does.  It  does  not  need  to 
be  demonstrated  either  by  word  or  deed,  in  order  to  be 
full  of  healing  benefits  to  others.  ''This  is  that  which  we 
call  Character, — "  says  Emerson,  "a  reserved  force 
which  acts  directly  by  presence,  and  without  means." 

C.  But  it  is  also  true  that  Character  is  revealed  in  what 
a  man  says  and  does.  The  change  which  came  with  the 
sound  of  Herakles'  great  voice  was  deepened  by  his  next 
words  and  his  great  brave  laugh.  For  when  he  had  gone 
into  the  palace  a  few  minutes  later,  Balaustion  says : 

"As  for  the  sympathisers  left  to  muse, 
There  was  a  change,  a  new  light  thrown  on  things, 
Contagion  from  the  magnanimity 
O'  the  man  whose  Hfe  lay  on  his  hand  so  light. 
As  up  he  stepped,  pursuing  duty  still 
*  Higher  and  harder,'  as  he  laughed  and  said."  * 

» P.  554,  U.  11-18.  2  p.  554^  u.  26,  27,  30. 

'P.  556,11.  71-76. 


BALAUSTION'S  ADVENTURE  363 

It  is  worth  while,  therefore,  to  notice  in  this  poem  what  are 
the  indications  of  the  chief  elements  in  Herakles'  character. 

I.   Herakles'  Estimate  of  the  Value  of  his  Life, 

Herakles  counted  not  his  life  dear. 

a.  The  man  who  guards  his  life  so  miserly  defeats  his 
own  purpose.  This  is  not  advising  recklessness.  But  the 
fact  is  that  men  with  normal  red  blood  like  a  spice  of  danger. 
And  the  fact  is  that  great  souls  realize  that  their  lives  are 
little  worth.  It  is  only  the  petty  man  who  thinks  his  life  is 
of  so  much  importance  that  it  ought  to  be  guarded  jealously. 
The  really  great  man  knows  something  of  how  little  his 
life  really  amounts  to,  knows  it  is  not  at  all  essential  to 
anyone,  and  esteems  it  very  hghtly.  I  have  often  noticed 
how  the  lives  that  mean  most  are  constantly  esteemed  of 
no  value  by  their  possessors,  and  the  lives  which  are  of  no 
use  to  the  world  are  very  precious  to  their  possessors. 
Some  of  the  most  worthless  Kves  I  have  seen  were  guarded 
by  their  possessors  with  an  almost  frantic  anxiety  lest  any- 
thing should  happen  to  them. 

h.  Here  in  this  play  was  the  chorus  lamenting  how 
Admetos'  frantic  desire  to  save  his  life  had  brought  his  wife 

to  death  in  his  stead  — 

"the  pact 
He  made,  with  eyes  wide  open,  long  ago  — 
Made  and  was,  if  not  glad,  content  to  make."  ^ 

She  alone  had  been  willing  to  do  it.     All  the  rest  of  them 

were  of  an  equal  selfishness  and  cowardice  with  Admetos. 

But  when  Herakles  comes,  they  are  all  conscious  of  a 

different    atmosphere,  —  no    grasping    after    life  —  there 

faced  them  one  who  hazarded  his  life  every  day  and  cared 

not  for  it  — 

''Herakles,  who  held  his  life 

Out  on  his  hand,  for  any  man  to  take."  * 
»P.  552,  U.  8-10.  »P.  554,  U.  47,48. 


364  BROWNING  STUDIES 

His  coming  spoiled  their  lamentation.  They  are  at  once 
embarrassed  about  trying  to  explain  to  Herakles  what 
the  woe  is.^  They  know  surely  that  he  cannot  look  at  it 
as  they  do.  He  who  holds  his  Hfe  so  light,  what  will  he 
think  of  them  ? 

"Clearly  there  was  no  telling  such  an  one 
How,  when  their  monarch  tried  who  loved  him  more 
Than  he  loved  them,  and  found  they  loved,  as  he, 
Each  man,  himself,  and  held,  no  otherwise, 
That,  of  all  evils  in  the  world,  the  worst 
Was  —  being  forced  to  die,  whate'er  death  gain  : 
How  all  this  selfishness  in  him  and  them 
Caused  certain  sorrow  which  they  sang  about,  — 
I  think  that  Herakles,  who  held  his  life 
Out  on  his  hand,  for  any  man  to  take  — 
I  think  his  laugh  had  marred  their  threnody."  ^ 

c.  Surely  it  was  this  attitude  which  Herakles  held  toward 
life  that  helped  them  to  reconstruct  their  views  of  the 
calamity  which  had  come  to  Admetos'  house.  So  much 
vitaHty  as  great  Herakles  had  and  so  Ughtly  esteemed !  — 

"a  new  light  thrown  on  things. 
Contagion  from  the  magnanimity 
O'  the  man  whose  life  lay  on  his  hand  so  light, 
As  up  he  stepped,  pursuing  duty  still 
'Higher  and  harder,'  as  he  laughed  and  said."* 

"Admetos'  private  grief 
Shrank  to  a  somewhat  pettier  obstacle 
I'  the  way  o'  the  world."  * 

2.   The  Strength  of  Herakles. 

a.  Strength  is  normal;  weakness  is  abnormal.  How 
can  human  beings  be  content  to  live  at  a  "poor  dying 

1  P.  554,  U.  31-49. 

*  p.  554,  U-  39-49-    A  "threnody"  is  a  song  of  lamentation. 

ap.  556,  U.  72-76.  *  P.  557,  U- 2-4. 


BALAUSTION'S  ADVENTURE  365 

rate'*?  We  ought  to  be  tingling  with  health  and  power 
to  the  finger-tips.  Emerson's  great  claim  for  power  is 
that  it  comes  from  a  plus  condition  of  life.  The  coming  of 
Herakles  is  the  coming  of  a  superabimdant  vitality  into 
the  situation.  There  he  stands,  with  the  lion-skin  around 
his  shoulders,  tired  but  strong.  It  is  natural  to  get  tired  — 
that's  different  from  weakness.  Herakles  is  tired  from 
journeying  and  fighting;  his  "weary  happy  face,"  his 
"happy  weary  laugh,"  are  there  ^  —  notice  that  they  are 

"weary";  he  is 

"glad  to  give 
Poor  flesh  and  blood  their  respite  and  relief 
In  the  interval  'twixt  fight  and  fight  again,"  ^ 

and  he  does  it  with  triumphant  grace  at  his  banquet.    But 
he  is  made  of  strength  in  spite  of  all  possibiHty  of  weariness. 
(i)  His  great  arm  strains  Admetos'  head  pretty  severely 
against  the  lion's  hide  "on  that  broad  breast"  — 

"Till  the  king's  cheek  winced  at  the  thick  rough  gold."' 

(2)  His  great  hand  on  the  servant's  shoulder  has  to  be 
"careful  lest  it  crush"  ;  his  great  stature  makes  him  tower 

over  the  servant : 

"A  great  hand,  careful  lest  it  crush, 
Startled  him  on  the  shoulder :  up  he  stared. 
And  over  him,  who  stood  but  Herakles ! "  * 

(3)  And  when  Herakles  learns  from  the  servant  that 
Alkestis  is  dead,  the  splendid  strength  gives  him  the  cue 
what  to  do.  "In  a  spasm  and  splendour  of  resolve,"  ^  he 
decides  to  go  and  take  her  away  from  Death.  He  will  go 
with  his'  bare  hands  and  compel  Death  to  give  Alkestis 

1  p.  554, 11.  21,  31.  2  p.  556,  U.  39-41. 

»  P.  556, 11.  34-37.  "The  thick  rough  gold"  means,  of  course,  the  hair  on 
the  lion's  hide. 

<  P.  562,  u.  82-84.  ,  »p.  564, 1.38- 


366 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


up.^    Notice   the   superb   strength  made   ready   for   the 

contest : 

"So,  one  look  upward,  as  if  Zeus  might  laugh 
Approval  of  his  human  progeny,  — 
One  summons  of  the  whole  magnific  frame, 
Each  sinew  to  its  service,  —  up  he  caught. 
And  over  shoulder  cast,  the  lion-shag. 
Let  the  club  go,  —  for  had  he  not  those  hands?"  ^ 

"So,  to  the  struggle  off  strode  Herakles."  ^ 

(4)  And  when  he  comes  back,  it  is  still  the  strength  which 

impresses  them : 

"In  he  strode."* 

"  Somehow,  a  victory  —  for  there  stood  the  strength, 
Happy,  as  always ;  something  grave,  perhaps ; 
The  great  vein-cordage  on  the  fret-worked  front, 
Black-swollen,  beaded  yet  with  battle-dew 
The  yellow  hair  o'  the  hero!  —  his  big  frame 
A-quiver  with  each  muscle  sinking  back 
Into  the  sleepy  smooth  it  leaped  from  late."  ^ 

(5)  He  has  brought  Alkestis,  although  they  do  not  know 
yet  that  it  is  she : 

"Under  the  great  guard  of  one  arm,  there  leant 
A  shrouded  something,  live  and  woman-like. 
Propped  by  the  heart-beats  'neath  the  lion-coat."  ^ 

And  it  is  his  strong  hands  that  did  the  work :  Herakles  tells 

"how  he  sprang  from  ambuscade, 
Captured  Death,  caught  him  in  that  pair  of  hands."  ^ 

How  much  is  told  by  saying  so  little ! 

1  P.  564, 11.  47-54,  71-73.  ^  P.  564, 11.  68-73 ;  cf .  also  U.  74,  75- 

3  P.  565,  1,  6.     Notice  the  powerful  movement  "strode"  (also  p.  564, 
I.  74;  p.  567,  1.  14). 

4  P.  567,1.  14. 

5  P.  567,  11.  21-27.    How  well  Herakles'  figure  full  of  strength  goes  with 
his  "great  brow  acquainted  with  command"  (p.  567, 1.  86). 

6  P.  567,  II.  28-30.  7  p.  570,  U.  29,  30. 


BALAUSTION'S  ADVENTURE  367 

b.  But  the  chief  striking  thing  about  Herakles'  strength 
is  that  he  does  not  use  it  for  his  own  gain,  but  devotes  it 
to  the  service  of  humanity : 

(i)  Although  it  was 

"The  irresistible  sound  wholesome  heart 
O' the  hero" 

which  "drove  back,  dried  up,  sorrow  at  its  source,"  still  all 
were  conscious  of  the  strength  there, 

"all  the  mightiness 
At  labour  in  the  limbs  that,  for  man's  sake, 
Laboured  and  meant  to  labour  their  life  long."  * 

(2)  His  "fight  and  fight  again"  is  "all  for  the  world's 
sake."  2 

(3)  Herakles  at  his  banquet  is  simply  replenishing  his 
strength  that  he  may  serve  men  better : 

"Out  from  the  labour  into  the  repose, 
Ere  out  again  and  over  head  and  ears 
I'  the  heart  of  labour,  all  for  love  of  men : 
Making  the  most  o'  the  minute,  that  the  soul 
And  body,  strained  to  height  a  minute  since, 
Might  He  relaxed  in  joy,  this  breathing-space, 
For  man's  sake  more  than  ever."  ' 

And  the  feast  has  left 

"the  hero  ready  to  begin 
And  help  mankind,  whatever  woe  came  next."  * 

(4)  And  on  the  instant,  when  he  learns  that  Alkestis  is 
dead,  he  devotes  his  whole  splendid  strength  to  the  task  of 

1  P.  554,  11.  26-30.  In  the  last  three  lines  quoted  above,  the  emphasis 
should  be  on  "for  man's  sake,"  but  I  have  not  been  at  liberty  to  italicize 
the  words  because  of  the  danger  of  giving  the  idea  that  Browning  has  them 
printed  that  way. 

« P.  556,  U.  41,  42. 

»P.  562, 11.  52-58;  see  also  the  lines  following,  which  are  equally  to  the 
point.  <  P.  563, 11.  2,  3. 


368  BROWNING  STUDIES 

bringing  her  from  Death's  hands  to  her  husband,  —  Hera- 
kles'  strength  against  the  *^king  o'  the  daemons,"  ^  for  his 
friend's  sake. 

It  is  this  for  which  strength  exists  —  that  we  may  serve. 
"We  that  are  strong  ought  to  bear  the  infirmities  of  the 
weak,  and  not  to  please  ourselves." 

3.   The  Courage  of  Herakles. 

a.  Amid  those  who  are  full  of  forebodings  of  danger  to 
him,  Herakles  is  undaunted.  He  is  on  his  way  to  Thrace 
to  subdue  Diomedes  and  his  man-eating,  fire-breathing 
horses,  and  the  conversation  between  Herakles  and  the 
chorus  shows  how  foreign  to  him  are  all  their  fears.  He 
laughs  at  this  labor  which  he  has  to  do  for  Eurustheus 
the  Tirunthian.^  He  is  entirely  inexperienced  in  what  is 
before  him,  i.e.  he  has  never  yet  been  in  Thrace  nor  met 
with  Diomedes,  but  he  is  quite  free  from  anxiety  over  it : 

"Battle  there  may  be: 
I  must  refuse  no  labour,  all  the  same."  ^ 

He  has  fought  too  many  battles  to  care  for  this  one.  The 
harder  they  make  it  out  to  be,  the  fiercer  Diomedes  and  his 
horses  who  "mince  up  men  with  those  quick  jaws,"  ^  the 
less  they  stir  in  him  anything  except  eagerness  for  the  fight : 

"Another  laugh. 
'Why,  just  the  labour,  just  the  lot  for  me 
Dost  thou  describe  in  what  I  recognise ! 
Since  hard  and  harder,  high  and  higher  yet, 
Truly  this  lot  of  mine  is  like  to  go 
If  I  must  needs  join  battle  with  the  brood 
Of  Ares. 

1  The  phrase  is  from  p.  570, 11.  27,  28;  cf.  the  "king  of  the  corpses,"  p.  564, 
1.48. 

2  P.  554,  U.  59,  60;  cf.  p.  555,1.  8. 

8  P.  554,  H.  65-71.  ^P.  5SS,U.  2,3. 


BALAUSTION'S  ADVENTURE  369 

But  there  is  nobody  shall  ever  see 

Alkmene's  son  shrink  foeman's  hand  before ! ' "  * 

h.  Amid  all  those  who  stand  in  awe  and  terror  of  Death, 
Herakles  has  no  fear.  He  will  seek  Death  at  the  tomb, 
attack  him,  and  rescue  Alkestis  from  him.^  And  Herakles' 
plan  was  such  that  even  if  he  had  missed  Death  at  the 
tomb,  even  if  Death  had  not  come  to  drink  the  offerings, 
Herakles  would  have  gone  to  Hades  and  demanded  that 
Pluto  and  Proserpine  restore  Alkestis  to  the  earth-life  once 

more: 

"But  even  say  I  miss  the  booty,  —  say, 
Death  comes  not  to  the  boltered  blood,  —  why  then, 
Down  go  I,  to  the  unsunned  dwelling-place 
Of  Kore  and  the  king  there,  —  make  demand, 
Confident  I  shall  bring  Alkestis  back."  ^ 

But  it  was  not  necessary  to  go.  He  found  Death  at  the 
tomb,  ^'caught  him  in  that  pair  of  hands." 

c.  And  so  it  was  his  courage  as  well  as  his  strength  that 
conquered.  He  did  not  seek  the  easy  things.  The  harder 
the  task  the  more  he  warmed  to  it,  the  more  lion  in  his  soul. 

4.   The  Magnanimity  of  Herakles. 

Magnanimity  —  literally,  greatmindedness ,  —  one  of  the 
finest  things  in  the  world.  We  don't  hear  the  word  very 
often  now.     Can  it  be  that  the  quahty  is  dying  out? 

The  magnanimity  of  Herakles  is  manifested  in  every- 
thing :  not  one  touch  of  pettiness  —  not  any  littleness  of 
thought. 

a.  He  is  entirely  devoid  of  suspicion.  This  being  sus- 
picious of  everybody  is  a  poor  miserable  way  to  live.  As 
soon  as  Admetos  assures  Herakles  that  it  is  all  right  and 
he  must  stay,  it  is  enough.     He  takes  Admetos  at  his  word : 

*P.  555,  U-  8-14,  17,  18.  Diomedes,  king  of  the  Bistones,  was  the  son 
of  Ares  (Mars),  the  god  of  war ;  see  11.  6-8. 

» P.  564, 11. 47-54.  '  P-  564,  n.  ss-59. 


370  BROWNING  STUDIES 

"Whereat  the  hero,  who  was  truth  itself, 
Let  out  the  smile  again,  repressed  awhile 
Like  fountain-brilliance  one  forbids  to  play. 
He  did  too  many  grandnesses,  to  note 
Much  in  the  meaner  things  about  his  path : 
And  stepping  there,  with  face  towards  the  sun, 
Stopped  seldom  to  pluck  weeds  or  ask  their  names. 
Therefore  he  took  Admetos  at  the  word."  ^ 

b.  Herakles  is  so  magnanimous  that  nothing  is  beneath 
his  attention.  It  is  only  the  little-minded  man  whose 
dignity  is  too  great  for  him  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
some  folks  or  be  interested  in  their  little  affairs.  Here 
comes  this  great-souled  man  out  from  his  feast  and  sees 
there  a  servant  very  sour  and  disturbed.  Well,  the  great 
fighter  does  not  despise  the  opportunity  to  cheer  up  this 
serving-man:  Herakles  "ready  to  help  mankind," 

"Even  though  what  came  next  should  be  nought  more 
Than  the  mean  querulous  mouth  o'  the  man,  remarked 
Pursing  its  grievance  up  till  patience  failed 
And  the  sage  needs  must  rush  out,  as  we  saw, 
To  sulk  outside  and  pet  his  hate  in  peace. 
By  no  means  would  the  Helper  have  it  so : 
He  who  was  just  about  to  handle  brutes 
In  Thrace,  and  bit  the  jaws  which  breathed  the  flame,  — 
Well,  if  a  good  laugh  and  a  jovial  word 
Could  bridle  age  which  blew  bad  humours  forth. 
That  were  a  kind  of  help,  too ! "  ^ 

And  so  "this  grand  benevolence"  hails  "the  ungracious 
one,"  and  tries  to  cheer  him  up.^ 

c.  And  Herakles'  magnanimity  is  with  him  at  the  end. 
He  makes  no  boast.    He  speaks  little  of  what  he  has  done.^ 

»  P.  5S6,  U.  24-31.  a  p.  563,  U.  4-14;  cf.  p.  s6i,  11.  46-55. 

'  P-  563, 11.  14-16.  Notice  the  argument  in  Herakles'  speech  in  the  lines 
following. 

*  P.  570,  U.  26-30. 


BALAUSTION'S  ADVENTURE  371 

He  wants  no  reward.    He  will  not  stay.    He  goes  on  to 
the  *^  winter  world  of  Thrace,"  ^  to  battle,  perhaps  to  death. 

"Fain  would  Admetos  keep  that  splendid  smUe 
Ever  to  light  him.    *  Stay  with  us,  thou  heart ! 
Remain  our  house-friend ! ' 

'At  some  other  day ! 
Now,  of  necessity,  I  haste !'  smiled  he."  ^ 

5.   The  Joy  of  Herakles, 

His  light  esteem  of  life,  his  strength,  his  courage,  his 
magnanimity,  —  all  make  the  character  of  Herakles  a 
great  one.  But  more  striking  than  any  of  these  is  the  joy 
of  Herakles.  It  is  this  characteristic  which  familiarity 
with  the  poem  will  leave  longest  in  your  thoughts.  It 
runs  through  all  the  poem. 

a.  In  his  very  first  words  —  the  words  that  startle  the 
onlookers  when  Herakles  comes  —  they  catch  "the  gay 
cheer  of  that  great  voice,"  ^  and  then  they  look  at 

"the  weary  happy  face  of  him,  —  half  God, 
Half  man,  which  made  the  god-part  God  the  more."  * 

h.  Notice  his  laughter:  "the  happy  weary  laugh,"  ^ 
his  laugh  about  his  labors,^  "another  laugh."  ^ 

"I  think  his  laugh  had  marred  their  threnody."  ^ 

c.  Notice  his  great  smile,  when  he  is  not  laughing : 
(i)  When  he  thought  his  friend  was  in  bereavement,  he 
repressed  the  smile,  like  shutting  off  a  fountain.    As  soon 
as  he  is  pursuaded  that  the  condition  is  not  so  sorrowful 
as  he  thought,  he  lets  out  the  smile  again.^ 

1  P.  567, 1.  4;  cf.  p.  547, 11.  19,  20.  2  p.  570,  11.  45-48. 

•P.  554,1.  17.  *P.  554,U.  21,  22. 

6  P.  554,  1.  31.  »P.  554,  U.  59,  60;  cf.  U.  61-63. 

'P.  5SS,  1.  8.  8 P.  554,1.  49. 

»  P.  556,  U.  24-26. 


372 


BROWNING  STUDIES 


(2)  When  Herakles  came  out  from  the  banquet, 

"There  smiled  the  mighty  presence,  all  one  smile."  ^ 

(3)  He  lost  the  smile  again  at  learning  from  the  servant 
that  Alkestis  was  dead.     The  servant  marked 

"The  movement  of  the  mouth,  how  lip  pressed  lip, 
And  either  eye  forgot  to  shine,  as,  fast, 
He  plucked  the  chaplet  from  his  forehead,  dashed 
The  myrtle-sprays  down,  trod  them  underfoot ! 
And  all  the  joy  and  wonder  of  the  wine 
Withered  away,  like  fire  from  off  a  brand 
The  wind  blows  over  —  beacon  though  it  be, 
Whose  merry  ardour  only  meant  to  make 
Somebody  all  the  better  for  its  blaze. 
And  save  lost  people  in  the  dark :  quenched  now ! "  ^ 

(4)  After  the  struggle,  "there  stood  the  strength,  happy, 
as  always."  ^  But  Herakles  was  not  all  back  until  the 
smile  came,  —  it  was  so  a  part  of  himself : 

"and  last  the  smile 
Shone  out,  all  Herakles  was  back  again."  * 

(5)  And  it  was  "that  splendid  smile"  of  Herakles  which 
Admetos  wanted  to  keep  "ever  to  light  him."  ^ 

d.  Notice  Herakles'  zest  at  the  feast,  and  his  joy  and  song : 
(i)  A  gUmpse  of  it  as  the  door  opens  to  let  the  servant  out : 
"We  faced  about. 
Fronted  the  palace  where  the  mid-hall-gate 
Opened  —  not  half,  nor  half  of  half,  perhaps  — 
Yet  wide  enough  to  let  out  light  and  life. 
And  warmth  and  bounty  and  hope  and  joy,  at  once. 
Festivity  burst  wide,  fruit  rare  and  ripe 
Crushed  in  the  mouth  of  Bacchos,  pulpy-prime,"  * 
and  so  on. 

1  P.  562, 1.  8s ;  see  also  11.  86,  87.  2  p.  564^  u.  23-32. 

3  P.  567,  11.  21,  22.  4  P.  567, 11.  33,  34. 

6  P.  570, 11.  45,  46.  « P.  561, 11.  29-35 ;  see  11.  36-41. 


BALAUSTION'S  ADVENTURE  373 

(2)  The  account,  in  the  mouth  of  the  complaining  ser- 
vant, of  how  the  feast  has  gone : 

"And  in  his  hands 
Taking  the  ivied  goblet,  drinks  and  drinks 
The  unmixed  product  of  black  mother-earth, 
Until  the  blaze  o'  the  wine  went  round  about 
And  warmed  him :  then  he  crowns  with  myrtle  sprigs 
His  head,  and  howls  discordance."  ^ 

(3)  Balaustion's  sketch  of  what  the  feast  has  been : 

"Just  a  garland's  grace 
About  the  brow,  a  song  to  satisfy 
Head,  heart  and  breast,  and  trumpet-lips  at  once, 
A  solemn  draught  of  true  religious  wine, 
And,  —  how  should  I  know  ?  —  half  a  mountain  goat 
Tom  up  and  swallowed  down,  —  the  feast  was  fierce 
But  brief :  all  cares  and  pains  took  wing  and  flew."  ^ 

All  these  fragmentary  descriptions  show  in  Herakles 
the  same  sheer  exuberance  of  joy. 

e.  The  origin  and  object  of  all  this  joy  Balaustion  has 
given  us,  as  she  looks  after  Herakles  going  to  the  tomb  to 
conquer  Death : 

"  Gladness  be  with  thee,  Helper  of  our  world ! 
I  think  this  is  the  authentic  sign  and  seal 
Of  Godship,  that  it  ever  waxes  glad, 
And  more  glad,  until  gladness  blossoms,  bursts 
Into  a  rage  to  suffer  for  mankind, 
And  recommence  at  sorrow."  ' 

D.  And  so  the  last  figure  I  leave  with  you  from  our  study 
of  Browning  tliis  semester  is  the  figure  of  Herakles,  — 

ip.  561,  11.  70-75:  "howls  discordance,"  no  matter  how  well  he  sings, 
because  the  servant  feels  that  Herakles'  song  is  out  of  harmony  with  the 
grief  of  the  palace. 

2P.S62,  1.87-p.s63,l.  I. 

•  P.  564, 11.  76-81 ;  see  also  the  lines  following. 


^74  BROWNING  STUDIES 

Herakles  with  his  scorn  of  petty  grasping  after  life,  his 
strength,  his  courage,  his  magnanimity,  his  invincible  joy, 
—  one  whose  very  presence  was  such  that,  with  the  sound 
of  his  voice, 

"Sudden  into  the  midst  of  sorrow,  leapt 
Hope,  joy,  salvatioii :  Herakles  was  here !  '*  * 

I  would  to  God  we  might  all  face  life  with  somewhat  of  the 
attitude  Herakles  had. 

1  P.  554, 11.  i6,  i8 ;  the  passage  already  quoted  more  fully. 


APPENDIX  A 

A  LIST  OF  BOOKS 

Tms  list  does  not  undertake  to  be  a  complete  bibliography.  The 
divisions  in  the  list  are  simply  for  ease  of  reference.  The  groups, 
of  course,  overlap ;  e.g.  biography  and  criticism  are  combined  in  many 
books.  The  general  plan  within  each  division  is  to  arrange  the  books 
as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  order  of  their  first  appearance.  A  major- 
ity of  the  books  here  listed  are  still  (1914)  in  print. 

I.    Browning's  Works 

A.  One- volume  editions : 

1.  Globe  Edition,  edited  by  Augustine  Birrell,  New  York,  The 
Macmillan  Co. 

2.  Cambridge  Edition,  Boston,  Houghton,  Miffin  &  Co. 

B.  Editions  in  several  volumes: 

1.  Edition  in  17  vols.,  London,  Smith,  Elder  &  Co.  Browning's 
last  revision,  the  text  followed  by  all  recent  editions. 

2.  Riverside  Edition,  6  vols.,  edited  by  George  Willis  Cooke,  Bos- 
ton, Houghton,  Mifllin  &  Co. 

3.  Edition  in  3  vols.,  Boston,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 

4.  Camberwell  Edition,  12  vols.,  edited  by  Miss  Charlotte  Porter 
and  Miss  Helen  A.  Clarke,  New  York,  T.  Y.  Crowell  &  Co. 

5.  Centenary  Edition,  10  vols.,  introductions  by  Frederic  G.  Ken- 
yon,  London,  Smith,  Elder  &  Coi,  1912;  Boston,  R.  H-  Hinkley  Co. 
Limited  and  expensive  edition. 

C.  There  are  an  immense  number  of  editions  of  an  individual 
poem  or  play,  or  of  a  group  of  selected  works,  —  many  with  notes, 
some  with  illustrations.    I  have  not  tried  to  make  a  list  of  them. 

II.    Biography  of  Browning 

I.  William  Sharp,  Life  of  Robert  Browning,  London,  W.  Scott, 
1890 ;  New  York,  Chas.  Scribner's  Sons.     (Great  Writers.) 

375 


376 


^BROWNING  STUDIES 


2.  Edmund  W.  Gosse,  Robert  Browning:  Personalia,  Boston, 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1890. 

3.  Mrs.  Sutherland  Orr,  Life  and  Letters  of  Robert  Browning,  pub. 
1891 ;  new  edition  revised  and  in  part  rewritten  by  Frederic  G. 
Kenyon,  Boston,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1908. 

4.  Arthur  Waugh,  Robert  Browning,  Boston,  Small,  Maynard  &  Co., 
1900.     {Westminster  Biographies.) 

5.  Gilbert  K.  Chesterton,  Robert  Browning,  New  York,  The  Mac- 
millan  Co.,  1903.     {English  Men  of  Letters.) 

6.  Edward  Dowden,  Robert  Browning,  London,  J.  M.  Dent  &  Sons, 
Ltd. ;  New  York,  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.,  1904.     {Temple  Biographies.) 

7.  James  Douglas,  Robert  Browning,  New  York,  James  Pott  &  Co., 
1904.     {Bookman  Biographies.) 

8.  Charles  H.  Herford,  Robert  Browning,  New  York,  Dodd,  Mead 
&  Co.,  1905. 

9.  W.  Hall  Griffin,  The  Life  of  Robert  Browning,  completed  and 
edited  by  Harry  C.  Minchin,  New  York,  The  Macmillan  Co.,  19 10. 

10.  Letters  of  Robert  Browning  and  Elizabeth  Barrett,  18 45-18 46, 
2  vols.,^  New  York,  Harper  &  Bros.,  1899. 

11.  Robert  Browning  and  Alfred  Domett,  Browning's  letters  to 
Domett,  etc.,  edited  by  Frederic  G.  Kenyon,  New  York,  E.  P.  Dutton 
&  Co.,  1906. 

III.    Introductions  and  Primers 

1.  Hiram  Corson,  An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Robert  Br  owning^  s 
Poetry,  Boston,  D.  C.  Heath  &  Co.,  1886. 

2.  Arthur  Symons,  An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Browning,  Lon- 
don, 1886;  new  edition,  New  York,  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.,  1906. 

3.  William  J.  Alexander,  An  Introduction  to  the  Poetry  of  Robert 
Browning,  Boston,  Ginn  &  Co.,  1889. 

4.  Ella  B.  Hallock,  Introduction  to  Browning,  New  York,  The  Mac- 
millan Co.,  1913. 

5.  F.  Mary  Wilson,  A  Primer  on  Browning,  London,  Macmillan 
&  Co.,  1891. 

6.  Thomas  Rain,  Browning  for  Beginners,  London,  Swan,  Sonnen- 
schein  &  Co.,  1904;  New  York,  The  Macmillan  Co. 

7.  Edward  Berdoe,  A  Primer  of  Browning,  London,  Routledge, 
1904 ;   New  York,  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co. 

8.  Esther  P.  Defries,  Browning  Primer,  New  York,  The  Mac- 
millan Co. 


APPENDIX  A 


IV.    Handbooks 


377 


1.  Mrs.  Sutherland  Orr,  A  Handbook  to  the  Works  of  Robert  Brown- 
ing, London,  George  Bell  &  Sons,  1885 ;  now  in  its  nth  ed. ;  New 
York,  The  Macmillan  Co. 

2.  Geo.  Willis  Cooke,  A  Guide-Book  to  the  Poetic  and  Dramatic 
Works  of  Robert  Browning,  Boston,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1891. 

3.  Edward  Berdoe,  Browning  Cyclopcedia,  pub.  1891,  7th  ed.  191 2, 
London,  George  Allen  &  Co.,  Ltd. ;  New  York,  The  Macmillan  Co. 

V.    Criticism  and  Appreciation 

1.  Caroline  W.  H.  Dall,  Sordello,  a  History  and  a  Poem,  Boston, 
Roberts  Bros.,  1886. 

2.  James  Fotheringham,  Studies  in  the  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning, 
London,    1887;    2d  ed.,    1888. 

3.  Mary  E.  Burt,  Browning's  Women,  with  an  introduction  by 
Edward  Everett  Hale,  Chicago,  Kerr  &  Co.,  1887. 

4.  WiUiam  G.  Kingsland,  Robert  Browning,  Chief  Poet  of  the  Age, 
London,  Jarvis,  1887 ;  new  ed.,  1890. 

5.  Sarah  W.  Whitman,  Robert  Browning  in  his  Relation  to  the  Art 
of  Painting,  Boston  Browning  Society,  1889. 

6.  Leon  H.  Vincent,  A  Few  Words  on  Robert  Browning,  Philadel- 
phia, Arnold  &  Co.,  1890;  2nd  ed.,  1895. 

7.  John  T.  Nettleship,  Robert  Browning:  Essays  and  Thoughts, 
London,  Matthews,  1890 ;  includes  the  Essays  on  Robert  Browning's 
Poetry  published  1868 ;  new  edition,  1909 ;  New  York,  Chas.  Scrib- 
ner's  Sons. 

8.  Walter  Fairfax,  Robert  Browning  and  the  Drama,  London,  Reeves 
&  Turner,  1891. 

9.  Oscar  L.  Triggs,  Browning  and  Whitman:  a  Study  in  Democracy, 
London,  Swan,  Sonnenschein  &  Co.,  1893. 

10.  Arthur  Beatty,  Browning's  Verse-form:  its  Organic  Character, 
New  York,  Columbia  University  Press,  1897.  (Doctor's  disserta- 
tion.) 

11.  James  Fotheringham,  Studies  in  the  Mind  and  Art  of  Robert 
Browning,  London,  1898 ;  4th  ed.,  New  York,  Wessels  &  Bissell  Co., 
1900. 

12.  Elizabeth  L.  Gary,  Bromiing,  Poet  and  Man:  a  Survey,  New 
York,  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  1899. 


378  ^BROWNING  STUDIES 

13.  Stopford  A.  Brooke,  The  Poetry  of  Robert  Browning,  New  Yoyk, 
T.  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.,  1902. 

14.  Cora  M.  MacDonald,  A  Study  of  Browning^s  Saul,  Chicago, 
Fleming  H.  Revell  Co.,  1902. 

15.  Josiah  Flew,  Studies  in  Browning,  London,  Kelley,  1904. 

16.  Elizabeth  P.  Gould,  The  Brownings  and  America,  Boston,  The    ' 
Poet-Lore  Co.,  1904. 

17.  M.  A.  Abbott,  Browning  and  Meredith:  Points  of  Similarity, 
Boston,  Richard  G.  Badger,  1904. 

18.  F.  T.  Marzials,  Browning,  New  York,  The  Macmillan  Co., 
1905. 

19.  David  Duff,  An  Exposition  of  Browning^ s  ^^Sordello,"  with 
Historical  and  Other  Notes,  Edinburgh,  Blackwood,  1906. 

20.  Samuel  S.  Curry,  Browning  and  the  Dramatic  Monologue, 
Boston,  Expression  Co.,  1908. 

21.  Thomas  R.  Lounsbury,  The  Early  Literary  Career  of  Robert 
Browning,  New  York,  Chas.  Scribner's  Sons,  191 1. 

22.  Lilian  Whiting,  The  Brownings:  their  Life  and  Art,  Boston, 
Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  191 1. 

23.  Thos.  M.  Parrott,  Vitality  of  Browning,  New  York,  James 
Pott  &  Co. 

VI.    Narrative 

1.  Frederic  M.  Holland,  Sordello:  a  Story  from  Robert  Browning, 
New  York,  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  1881. 

2.  Frederic  M.  Holland,  Stories  from  Robert  Browning,  with  an  in- 
troduction by  Mrs.  Sutherland  Orr,  London,  George  Bell  &  Sons, 
1882. 

3.  Annie  Wall,  Sordello' s  Story  Retold  in  Prose,  Boston,  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.,  1886. 

4.  Harvey  C.  Grumbine,  Stories  from  Browning,  Boston,  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.,  1914. 

Vn.    The  Ring  and  the  Book 

1.  Roy  S.  Stowell,  The  Significance  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  Bos- 
ton, The  Poet-Lore  Co.,  1903. 

2.  Minnie  G.  Machen,  The  Bible  in  Browning,  with  Particular  Ref- 
erence to  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  New  York,  The  Macmillan  Co., 
1903. 


APPENDIX  A  379 

3.  The  Old  Yellow  Book,  Source  of  Browning's  The  Ring  and  the 
Dook,  in  complete  Photo-reproduction,  with  Translation,  Essay,  and 
Motes,  by  Charles  W.  Hodell,  published  by  the  Carnegie  Institution 
of  Washington,  1908.  Contains  also  all  the  other  source-material 
bearing  on  the  case. 

Same,  the  translations  only,  with  an  introduction  and  notes  by 
Prof.  Hodell,  New  York,  E.  P.  Button  &  Co.,  no  date.  (Everyman's 
Library.) 

4.  Francis  B.  Hornbrooke,  The  Ring  and  the  Book:  An  Interpre- 
tation, Boston,  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1909. 

VIII.    Browning's  Philosophy  and  Religion 

1.  Howard  S.  Pearson,  Robert  Browning:  the  Thoughts  of  a  Poet 
on  Art  and  Faith,  a  lecture,  Birmingham,  Eng.,  Cornish,  1885. 

2.  Edward  Berdoe,  Browning^ s  Message  to  his  Time:  his  Religion, 
Philosophy,  and  Science,  London,  Swan,  Sonnenschein  &  Co.,  1890; 
now  in  its  5th  ed. ;  New  York,  The  Macmillan  Co. 

3.  Edward  Berdoe,  Browning  and  the  Christian  Faith,  New  York, 
Macmillan  &  Co.,  1896. 

4.  Henry  Jones,  Browning  as  a  Philosophical  and  Religious  Teacher, 
Glasgow,  James  Maclehose  &  Sons,  1891 ;  now  in  its  6th  ed. ;  New 
York,  The  Macmillan  Co. 

5.  Frederick  Ealand,  Sermons  from  Browning,  pub.  1892;  2nd  ed., 
London,  Brown,  Langham  &  Co.,  1905. 

6.  William  F.  Revell,  Browning's  Criticism  of  Life y  London,  Swan, 
Sonnenschein  &  Co.,  1892. 

7.  Brainerd  M.  Burridge,  Robert  Browning  as  an  Exponent  of  a 
Philosophy  of  Life,  Cleveland,  1893. 

8.  Mrs.  Percy  Leake,  The  Ethics  of  Browning's  Poems,  London, 
Richards,  1897. 

9.  Amory  H.  Bradford,  Spiritual  Lessons  from  Brouming,  New 
York,  T.  Y.  CroweU  &  Co.,  1900. 

10.  Wm.  DeWitt  Hyde,  The  Art  of  Optimism  as  Taught  by  Robert 
Browning,  New  York,  T.  Y.  CroweU  &  Co.,  1900. 

11.  Arthur  C.  Pigou,  Robert  Browning  as  a  Religious  Teacher, 
London,  Clay,  1901.  (The  Bumey  Essay  for  1900  at  Cambridge 
University.) 

12.  Edward  H.  Griggs,  The  Poetry  and  Philosophy  of  Browning: 
a  Handbook  of  Six  Lectures,  New  York,  B.  W.  Huebsch,  1905. 


380  Browning  studies 

13.  Frank  C.  Lockwood,  Modern  Poets  and  Christian  Teaching: 
Robert  Browning,  New  York,  Eaton  &  Mains,  1906. 

14.  Ethel  M.  Naish,  Browning  and  Dogma,  London,  George  Bell 
&  Sons,  1906. 

15.  W.  D.  Weatherford,  Fundamental  Religious  Principles  in  Brown- 
ing^ s  Poetry,  Nashville,  Smith  &  Lamar,  1907. 

16.  P.  Berger,  Quelques  Aspects  de  la  Foi  Moderne  dans  les  Pohmes 
de  Robert  Browning,  Paris,  Societe  Frangaise  d'Imprimerie  et  de 
Librairie,  1907. 

17.  Arthur  Rogers,  Prophecy  and  Poetry:  Studies  in  Isaiah  and 
Browning,  London  and  New  York,  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  1909. 
(The  Bohlen  Lectures  for  1909.) 

18.  J.  A.  Hutton,  Guidance  from  Robert  Browning  in  Matters  0] 
Faith,  London,  Methuen  &  Co.  y 

IX.    Concordance 
Marie  A.  Molineux,  A  Phrase  Book  from  the  Poetic  and  Dramatic 
Works  of  Robert  Browning,  to  which  is  added  an  Index  containing  the 
significant  words  not  elsewhere  noted,  Boston,  Houghton,  Mifflin  & 
Co.,  1896. 

X.    Setting  of  the  Life  and  Poems  of  Browning 

1.  Helen  A.  Cla;rke,  Browning^ s  Italy,  New  York,  The  Baker  & 
Taylor  Co.,  1907. 

2.  Helen  A.  Clarke,  Browning's  England,  New  York,  The  Baker 
&  Taylor  Co.,  1908. 

3.  Helen  A.  Clarke,  Browning  and  his  Century,  Garden  City,  N.  Y., 
Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1912. 

XL    Browning  Study  Programmes 

1.  Miss  Charlotte  Porter  and  Miss  Helen  A.  Clarke,  Browning 
Study  Programmes,  New  York,  T.  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.,  1900. 

2.  H.  C.  Peterson,  Inductive  Studies  in  Browning,  2nd  ed.,  Chicago, 
Ainsworth  &  Co.,  1903. 

3.  Chicago  Browning  Society,  Robert  Browning's  Poetry:  Outline 
Studies,  Chicago,  Kerr  &  Co.,  1886. 

XII.    Browning  Society  Papers 

I.  London  Browning  Society,  Papers,  12  vols.,  London,  Triibner, 
1881-91. 


APPENDIX  A  -  381 

2.  London  Browning  Society,  Browning  Studies,  being  Select  Papers, 
edited  by  Edward  Berdoe,  London,  Geo.  Allen  &  Co.,  Ltd.,  1895; 
New  York,  Macmillan  &  Co. 

3.  Boston  Browning  Society,  Papers,  selected  to  represent  the  work 
of  the  Society  from  1886-1897,  New  York,  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1897. 

XIII.    Bibliographies 

1.  F.  J.  Furnival,  A  Bibliography  of  Robert  Browning,  1833-81, 
London,  The  Browning  Society's  Papers,  vol.  I,  no.  2,  1881.  Addi- 
tions in  no.  3,  of  same  vol. 

2.  John  P.  Anderson,  Bibliography,  as  an  Appendix  in  William 
Sharp's  Life  of  Robert  Browning,  London,  Scott,  1890. 

3.  Thos.  J.  Wise  and  W.  R.  NicoU,  Materials  for  a  Bibliography  of 
the  Writings  of  Robert  Browning,  in  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  vol.  I,  pp.  359-627,  London,  Hodder  &  Stoughton,  1895. 

4.  Mrs.  Sutherland  Orr,  Bibliography,  in  her  Handbook  to  the  Works 
of  Browning.  X-^._, 

5.  Boston  Browning  Society,  Catalogue  of  the  Library,  Boston, 

1897. 

6.  Brooklyn  Public  Library,  Robert  Browning:  a  List  of  Books  and 
Reference  to  Periodicals  in  this  Library,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  191 2. 

7.  A  short  list  of  books  is  given  by  Berdoe,  Browning  Cyclopcedia, 
pp.  xi  and  xii,  followed  by  a  Hst  of  the  contents  of  the  vols,  of  the 
London  Browning  Society's  Papers. 

8.  A  Chronological  List  of  Robert  Browning's  Poems  and  Plays,  in 
the  Globe  Edition,  pp.  13 19-132 1,  gives  Browning's  volumes  and 
contents  of  each  volume  as  they  stood  when  it  appeared ;  also  date 
and  place  of  appearing  of  poems  pubUshed  elsewhere  before  being 
included  in  a  volume. 


APPENDIX  B 
BROWNING'S  POEMS  SET  TO  MUSIC 

This  list  is  based  on  the  Boston  Browning  Society's  collection  of 
songs  (now  in  the  Boston  Public  Library).  That  collection  is  supple- 
mented from  several  directions.  A  few  titles  are  from  a  list  pub- 
lished in  Poet-Lore,  1889,  vol.  I,  pp.  430,  431 ;  but  most  of  the  set- 
tings have  appeared  since  that  time. 

The  order  of  arrangement  in  the  following  list  is  according  to  the 
date  of  publication  of  the  poems.  In  all  cases  where  the  date  of  pub- 
lication of  the  music  can  be  found,  that  is  put  down.  The  settings 
of  a  given  poem  are  arranged  in  chronological  order,  as  far  as  possible. 
Inevitably  the  list  is  incomplete. 

I.  From  Paracelsus,  1835 

1.  In  sc.  I,  the  lines  beginning  "I  go  to  prove  my  soul."  Set 
to  music  by  Ethel  Harraden,  London,  Jeffreys. 

2.  In  sc.  IV,  the  song  "Over  the  sea  our  galleys  went."  Same 
composer  and  same  publisher. 

II.  From  Pippa  Passes,  1841 

1.  Scene  from  Pippa  Passes,  by  Wm.  Wallace  Gilchrist.  MS. 
signed  W.  W.  Gilchrist  and  dated  Apr.  7,  1899.  Begins  with  Pippa's 
New  Year's  hymn;  then  a  part  of  her  soliloquy  in  the  prologne; 
closes  with  her  closing  words  in  the  epilogue,  including  the  three  Hues 
of  the  same  hymn. 

2.  Song,  "The  year's  at  the  spring."    Four  settings : 

a.  By  Clara  Kathleen  Rogers,  Boston,  Schmidt,  1882;  same  in 
vol.  II  of  her  Browning  Songs,  ist  and  2d  series,  Boston,  Schmidt, 
1900. 

b.  By  W.  H.  Neidlinger,  New  York,  Schirmer,  1895. 

c.  By  Mrs.  H.  H.  A.  Beach,  Op.  44,  No.  i,  Boston,  Schmidt,  1900. 

d.  By  Cecile  S.  Hartog,  London,  Boosey;   Boston,  Ditson,  19—. 

382 


APPENDIX  B  383 

3.  Song,  "Give  her  but  a  least  excuse  to  love  me."    Two  settings : 

a.  By  Georgina  Schuyler,  under  title  The  Page  sings  to  the  Queetij 
New  York,  Schirmer,  1882. 

b.  By  Hugh  Archibald  Clarke,  written  for  the  Boston  Browning 
Soc.,  MS.  1899. 

4.  Song,  "You'll  love  me  yet."    Three  settings : 

a.  By  Henry  K.  Hadley,  Op.  20,  No.  i,  Boston,  Ditson,  1899. 

b.  By  John  Mokrejs,  pub.  by  the  author.  New  York,  1907. 

c.  By  Malcolm  Lawson,  used  at  one  of  the  entertainments  of  the 
London  Browning  Soc.    Not  yet  pubUshed,  as  far  as  could  be  learned. 

5.  Song,  "Overhead  the  tree-tops  meet."  One  setting:  By  Hugh 
Archibald  Clarke,  written  for  the  Boston  Browning  Soc.,  MS,  1899. 

III.  From  Dramatic  Lyrics,  1842 

1.  Cavalier  Tunes,  viz.  i.  Marching  Along,  n.  Give  a  Rouse. 
III.  Boot  and  Saddle. 

a.  All  three  set  to  music  by  Chas.  Villiers  Stanford,  solo  and  chorus, 
London,  Boosey. 

b.  Second  song  only,  by  Maude  Valerie  White,  under  title  King 
Charles,  London,  Boosey,  1898. 

c.  Third  song  only,  by  Gustav  Kobb^,  under  title  To  horsey  New 
York,  Ditson,  1887. 

2.  In  a  Gondola. 

a.  The  major  part  of  In  a  Gondola  has  been  set  to  music  by  John 
Parsons  Beach,  dramatic  monologue,  Newton  Center,  Mass.,  The 
Wa-Wan  Press,  1905.    Includes  eight  portions  of  the  poem. 

b.  First  song  only,  "I  send  my  heart  up  to  thee,  all  my  heart." 
Three  settings : 

(i)  By  Georgina  Schuyler,  New  York,  Schirmer,  1882. 

(2)  By  Mrs.  H.  H.  A.  Beach,  Op.  44,  No.  3,  Boston,  Schmidt,  1900. 

(3)  By  Gena  Branscombe,  under  title  Serenade,  Newton  Center, 
The  Wa-Wan  Press,  1905. 

c.  Song,  "What  are  we  two?"  One  setting:  By  Gena  Brans- 
combe, Newton  Center,  The  Wa-Wan  Press,  1905. 

d.  Some  part  of  In  a  Gondola,  under  that  title,  duet  with  'cello 
obligato,  by  Edwin  Bending,  written  for  the  London  Browning  Soc. 
and  not  yet  pubUshed. 


384  BROWNING  STUDIES 

IV.  From  A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,  1843 

I.  Song,  "There's  a  woman  like  a  dew-drop."  Set  to  music  by 
Alexander  Campbell  Mackenzie,  London,  Novello,  188-. 

V.  From  Dramatic  Romances  and  Lyrics,  1845 

1.  ''How  They  Brought  the  Good  News  from  Ghent  to  Aix^  Set 
to  music  by  Helen  J.  Ormerod,  London,  Forsyth,  188-. 

2.  The  Lost  Leader.  Part-song  for  men's  voices,  by  Ethel  Harra- 
den,  written  for  one  of  the  entertainments  of  the  London  Browning 
Soc.    Not  published. 

3.  Earth's  Immortalities.  Second  poem,  entitled  Love,  "So,  the 
year's  done  with."  Set  to  music  by  Clara  Kathleen  Rogers,  in  vol. 
II  of  her  Browning  Songs,  Boston,  Schmidt,  1900. 

4.  Song,  "Nay  but  you,  who  do  not  love  her."    Two  settings : 

a.  By  E.  C.  Gregory,  in  his  Six  Songs,  London,  Novello. 

b.  By  Malcolm  Lawson,  for  the  London  Browning  Soc.  Not 
pubHshed. 

5.  The  Boy  and  the  Angel.  Four-part  song  by  Edwin  Bending, 
for  the  London  Browning  Soc.    Not  pubHshed. 

VI.  From  Men  and  Women,  2  vols.,  1855 

1.  A  Lovers'  Quarrel.    Two  settings: 

a.  By  E.  C.  Gregory,  in  his  Six  Songs,  London,  Novello. 

b.  By  J.  Greenhill,  for  the  London  Browning  Soc.    Not  published. 

2.  A  Woman's  Last  Word.    Four  settings^: 

a.  By  LesHe  Johnson,  pub.  by  the  London  Browning  Soc. 

b.  By  Clara  Kathleen  Rogers,  in  vol.  II  of  her  Browning  Songs, 
Boston,  Schmidt,  1900. 

c.  By  John  Parsons  Beach,  Newton  Center,  The  Wa-Wan  Press, 
1903. 

d.  By  Sidney  Homer,  New  York,  Schirmer,  1903. 

3.  My  Star.    Four  settings : 

a.  By  Helen  A.  Clarke,  Boston,  The  Poet-Lore  Co.,  1892. 

b.  By  W.  H.  Neidlinger,  New  York,  Schirmer,  1895. 

c.  By  Clara  Kathleen  Rogers,  in  vol.  II  of  her  Browning  Songs, 
Boston,  Schmidt,  190a 

d.  By  Sidney  Homer,  New  York,  Schirmer,  1903. 

4.  Two  in  the  Campagna.    Stanzas  vni  and  ix  only,  "I  would 


APPENDIX  B  385 

that  you  were  all  to  me."    Set  to  music  bY^Caroline  Reinagle,  London, 
Augener,  188-. 

5.  One  Way  of  Love,  "  All  June  I  bound  the  rose  in  sheaves."  Four 
settings : 

a.  By  Helen  A.  Clarke,  song  with  'cello  obUgato,  Boston,  The 
Poet-Lore  Co.,  1892.  * 

h.  By  E.  C.  Gregory^  in  his  Six  Songs,  London,  Novello. 

c.  By  Clara  Kathleen  Rogers,  in  vol.  IT  of  her  Browning  Songs, 
Boston,  Schmidt,  1900. 

d.  By  Malcolm  Lawson,  for  the  London  Browning  Soc.  Not 
published. 

6.  Misconceptions,  "This  is  a  spray  the  Bird  clung  to."  Three 
settings : 

a.  By  Caroline  Reinagle,  London,  Augener,  188-. 

b.  By  Georgina  Schuyler,  New  York,  Schirmer,  1882. 

c.  By  E.  C.  Gregory,  in  his  Six  Songs,  London,  Novello. 

7.  In  a  Year,  "Never  any  more."  One  setting:  By  Caroline 
Reinagle,  London,  Augener,  188-. 

VII.  From  Dramatis  PERSONiE,  1864 

1.  James  Lee's  Wife.  Poem  i  only,  James  Lee's  Wife  Speaks  at 
the  Window:  "Ah,  Love,  but  a  day  And  the  world  has  changed." 
Five  settings : 

a.  By  Virginia  Gabriel,  under  title  At  the  Window,  Philadelphia, 
Trumpler,  188-. 

b.  By  Clara  Kathleen  Rogers,  Boston,  Schmidt,  1890;  same  in 
vol.  I  of  her  Browning  Songs,  Boston,  Schmidt,  1900. 

c.  By  Mrs.  H.  H.  A.  Beach,  Op.  44,  No.  2,  Boston,  Schmidt,  1900. 

d.  By  E.  C.  Gregory,  under  title  James  Lee's  Wife,  in  his  Six 
Songs,  London,  Novello. 

e.  By  Ethel  Harraden,  imder  title  Wilt  Thou  Change  too?  London, 
Jeffreys. 

2.  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra.  Stanza  i  only,  "Grow  old  along  with  me." 
Set  to  music  by  Georgina  Schuyler,  New  York,  Schirmer,  1882. 

3.  Prospice.    Two  settings : 

a.  By  Chas.  ViUiers  Stanford,  London,  Lucas,  Weber  &  Co.,  1884. 

b.  By  Sidney  Homer,  New  York,  Schirmer,  1903. 


386  BROWNING  STUDIES 

VIII.  From    Pacchiarotto    and    How    he    Worked    in    Dis- 
temper: WITH  other  Poems,  1876 

I.  Appearances,  "And  so  you  found  that  poor  room  dull."  One 
setting :  By  Clara  Kathleen  Rogers,  in  vol.  II  of  her  Browning  Songs, 
Boston,  Schmidt,  1900. 

IX.  From  La  Saisiaz,  1878 

I.  The  introductory  poem,  "Good,  to  forgive,"  Best,  to  forget!" 
Set  to  music  by  Clara  Kathleen  Rogers,  in  vol.  II  of  her  Browning 
Songs,  Boston,  Schmidt,  1900. 

X.  From  the  Two  Poets  of  Cr.oisic,  1878  (published  in  the  same 
volume  with  La  Saisiaz) 

I.  The  little  poem  prefixed,  here  without  title,  beginning  "Such  a 
starved  bank  of  moss,"  was  entitled  in  Selections  of  1880  Appari- 
tions.   Hence  the  settings  all  bear  that  title.    Four  settings : 

a.  By  Helen  A.  Clarke,  Boston,  The  Poet-Lore  Co.,  1892. 

b.  By  Clara  Kathleen  Rogers,  in  vol.  I  of  her  Browning  Songs, 
Boston,  Schmidt,  1900. 

c.  By  Signor  F.  Tetaldi,  pub.  by  the  London  Browning  Soc. 

d.  By  E.  C.  Gregory,  in  his  Six  Songs,  London,  Novello. 

XL  From  Ferishtah's  Fancies,  1884 

Lyrics  from  Ferishtah's  Fancies,  set  to  music  by  Granville  Bantock, 
English  and  German  words,  German  translation  by  Joh.  Bernhoff, 
Leipzig,  Breitkopf  and  Hartel,  1905.  Contains  12  lyrics  and  the 
epilogue,  as  follows : 

1.  "Round  us  the  wild  creatures." 

2.  "Wish  no  word  unspoken." 

3.  "You  groped  your  way  across  my  room." 

4.  "  Man  I  am  and  man  would  be.  Love." 

5.  "Fire  is  in  the  flint." 

6.  "  So,  the  head  aches  and  the  limbs  are  faint." 

7.  "When  I  vexed  you  and  you  chid  me." 

8.  "Once  I  saw  a  chemist." 

9.  "Verse-making  was  least  of  my  virtues." 
10.   "Not  with  my  Soul,  Love." 

II.  "Ask  not  one  least  word  of  praise." 


APPENDIX  B  387 

12.  "Why  from  the  world?" 

13.  Epilogue,  "Oh,  Love  —  no,  Love." 

Xn.  From  Asolando,  1889 

I.  Summum  Bonuntj  "All  the  breath  and  the  bloom  of  the  year 
in  the  bag  of  one  bee."  Set  to  music  by  Clara  Kathleen  Rogers,  in 
vol.  I  of  her  Browning  SongSy  Boston,  Schmidt,  1900. 


APPENDIX  C 

THE  WORD   "LATHEN" 

In  two  places  in  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  Browning  uses  the  word 

"lathen."     (i)  One  is  in  the  first  book  and  is  in  connection  with  the 

description  of  how  the  Pope  meditates  over  the  case  (p.  664,  11.  76- 

80): 

"The  manner  of  his  sitting  out  the  dim 

Droop  of  a  sombre  February  day 

In  the  plain  closet  where  he  does  such  work, 

With,  from  all  Peter's  treasury,  one  stool, 

One  table  and  one  lathen  crucifix." 

(2)  The  other  is  in  Count  Guido's  speech  before  the  judges  (p.  737, 

U.  38-42) : 

"If  I  baffle  you  so. 

Can  so  fence,  in  the  plenitude  of  right, 
That  my  poor  lathen  dagger  puts  aside 
Each  pass  o'  the  Bilboa,  beats  you  all  the  same,  — 
What  matters  ineflSiciency  of  blade?" 
On  these  passages  the  notes  in  the  Camberwell  Edition  of  Browning 
are:  (i)  vol.  VI,  p.  328: 

^^ Lathen:  probably  meant  for  latten,  a  fine  kind  of  brass  or 
bronze  used  in  the  Middle  Ages  for  crosses  and  candlesticks." 
(2)  Same  vol.,  p.  338 : 

^^  Lathen  =  latten,  a  kind  of  brass  or  bronze.    See  note,  I. 
1231." 

This  is  going  a  long  way  to  explain  a  simple  matter.  Looking  at 
the  word  "lathen,"  one  would  suspect  that  it  means  made  of  lath, 
just  as  "wooden"  means  made  of  wood,  "oaken"  made  of  oak,  and 
so  on  with  a  score  of  similar  words.  Let  us  try  this.  We  have  a 
"lathen  crucifix"  and  a  "lathen  dagger"  to  deal  with. 
I.  Let  us  take  the  "lathen  dagger"  first. 

I.  Now,  it  is  a  fact  that  in  mediaeval  days  the  court  fool,  or  jester, 
frequently  had  in  his  outfit  a  wooden  sword,  or  sword  of  lath.    For 

388 


APPENDIX  C  389 

several  examples  cited,  see  a  standard  work,  E.  K.  Chambers,  The 
MeduBval  Stage,  Oxford,  1903,  vol.  I,  p,  387. 

2.  From  this  common  custom,  came  the  sword  made  of  lath  in  the 
hands  of  the  character  called  the  Vice  in  the  mediaeval  dramas. 
Chambers,  as  above,  vol.  11,  pp.  204,  205,  says: 

"It  must  be  concluded  then  that,  whatever  the  name  may 
mean  —  and  irresponsible  philology  has  made  some  amazing 
attempts  at  explanation  —  the  character  of  the  vice  is  derived 
from  that  of  the  domestic  fool  or  jester.  Oddly  enough,  he  is 
rarely  called  a  fool,  although  the  description  of  Medwall's  Find- 
ing of  Truth  mentions  'the  foolys  part.'  But  the  Elizabethan 
writers  speak  of  his  long  coat  and  lathen  sword,  common  trappings 
of  the  domestic  fool." 

Here  in  Chambers'  discussion  we  have  the  very  word  "lathen"  used 

as  a  matter  of  course  to  describe  this  sword. 

3.  Now,  very  naturally,  sword  of  lath  and  dagger  of  lath  came  to 
be  proverbial  expressions.  Thus  e.g.  in  Shakespeare's  i  Henry  IV, 
Act  n,  Sc.  iv,  11.  126-129,  Falstaff  says: 

"A  king's  son !    If  I  do  not  beat  thee  out  of  thy  kingdom  with 
a  dagger  of  lath,  and  drive  all  thy  subjects  afore  thee  like  a  flock 
of  wild-geese,  I'll  never  wear  hair  on  my  face  more.    You  Prince 
of  Wales!" 
and  in  Twelfth  Night,  Act  IV,  end  of  Sc.  ii,  the  Clown  sings  of  "the 
old  Vice," 

"Who,  with  dagger  of  lath, 
In  his  rage  and  his  wrath, 
Cries,  ah,  ha !  to  the  devil." 
Even  more  to  the  point,  however,  is  the  fact  that  Robert  Browning 
himself  uses  the  expression  "dagger  o'  lath"  in  Prince  Hohenstiel- 
Sckwangau  (p.  927, 11.  18-22) : 

"Ay,  so  Sagacity  advised  him  filch 
Folly  from  fools :  handsomely  substitute 
The  dagger  o'  lath,  while  gay  they  sang  and  danced, 
For  that  long  dangerous"  sword  they  liked  to  feel. 
Even  at  feast-time,  clink  and  make  friends  start." 

4.  Looking  the  foregoing  facts  in  the  face,  there  can  be  no  reason- 
able doubt  that  "lathen  dagger"  in  Guido's  speech  means  dagger 
made  of  lath.    And  this  makes  the  sense,  —  the  contrast  being  be- 


390  BROWNING  STUDIES 

tween  a  Bilboa  and  his  own  poor  ridiculous  weapon,  both  used  figura- 
tively. 

II.  Turning  then  to  the  "lathen  crucifix,"  we  find  the  meaning 
there  equally  plain.  The  sentence  describes  the  poverty  of  the 
furnishings  of  the  private  room  in  which  the  Pope  is  meditating. 
Consistently  with  everything  else,  the  crucifix  is  only  a  poor  rough 
little  thing,  made  of  two  pieces  of  lath  with  a  crude  figure  of  the 
Christ  whittled  out  and  attached  to  it,  —  such  a  crucifix  as  those  to 
be  found  in  the  homes  of  poor  peasants. 


INDEX 


A  LIST  of  those  poems  and  plays  of  Browning's  to  which  individual 
discussion  is  given  in  the  foregoing  pages. 

Page  Page 

Abt  Vogler i82yf.ast  Ride  Together,  The     .    .      97  7 


/  .Balaustion's  Adventure 


351 


/f/^.  ,       Tj,  .    A     1  ^"a   ^^^  Leader,  The 80  / 

^Bishop  Blougrams  Apology     .     ^46.^^^^  ^j^^^^^ 


Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,  A     .     .     252 
By  the  Fire-side 93 


// 


^      ,.     ^  May  and  Death 102  U^ 

^r^!:f:lTL.::..-.:.,:   ^^Meeti„gatNip^t ,4; 

One  Word  More 160 


Childe  Roland  to  the  Dark 

Tower  Came" 119 

Cleon 153 

Confessions 10- 


y"DeGustibus— "      .    . 
Death  in  the  Desert,  A   . 

/y  Epilogue  to  Asolando 
\  Epistle,  An    .     .    ^.    .    . 
Evelyn  Hope     .... 


90 
191 

112 

136 

86 


Face,  A 106 


^Flower's  Name,  The 


81 


Garden  Fancies 

•jJCrammarian's  Funeral,  A    .     . 
' '  Guardian  Angel,  The       .     .     . 

Home-Thoughts,  from  Abroad 
Home-Thoughts,  from  the  Sea 


In  a  Balcony 176 


Likeness,  A 107 


Luria 


270 


Paracelsus 199 

Y  Parting  at  Momlfig     ....  84'/ 

Patriot,  The 95    f^ 

Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,  The     .  114 

Pippa  Passes 230 

^orphyria's  Lover       ....  100  J  O 

Prospice    .^ 104$/ 

H^abbi  Ben  Ezra 186  ^ 

Rephan no 

Reverie in 


Ring  and  the  Book,  The 


Saul 

Sibrandus  Schafnaburgensis 
Soul's  Tragedy,  A       .     .     . 

Speculative         

'  pStatue  and  the  Bust,  The    . 
Summum  Bonum       .    .    . 


301 

168 
81 
288 
109 
n7<^ 
108 


391 


J. 


73^ 


26.^y 


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